Why I Use the Term “Initiative” Rather than “Project”

In short, I find that the word project is too narrow given how it is used in practice. Not that there is anything wrong with the concept of projects, they certainly have their place and will do so for a long time to come. But they’re not the only game in town, nor have they ever been.

I?see PMOs that are conceptually hobbled because they want to focus on projects rather than on delivering value. When a PMO only focuses on projects, they ignore a lot (and often most) of the value-added effort within their organizations, limiting their scope and effectiveness. Worse yet, when a PMO has the mindset “everything is a project” they invariably inject needless risk and overhead into many initiatives that can be better supported by a long-standing team or an impromptu team rather than a team. The book From?PMO to VMO: Managing for Value Delivery?provides great advice for how PMOs can evolve beyond the project mentality to focus on adding real value to their organizations.

I read a lot of articles and books about software development that use the term “software project” yet most software development is performed outside the scope of a project. Instead of calling it a software project, call it a software initiative. Interestingly, there is a clear trend in the software world in recent years to move away from projects completely (see Mik Kersten’s book?Project to Product for details).

I also see people use the word "project" as a short form of "project team." In fact, I've done this myself in most of my books. An example of this mistake can be found in one of the most important writings in software engineering, the?Manifesto for Agile Software Development. The authors of the agile manifesto use the word project throughout the 12 principles where they were referring to teams. This is a reflection of the project-oriented culture of the time, a culture that the manifesto was clearly pushing back against.

My advice is simple:

• Use team when you mean team.
• Use project when you mean to restrict what you're describing to projects, otherwise use initiative which is far more inclusive and flexible.
• Avoid using project as an adjective unless you intend to restrict the term you're modifying. For example, is Sally Jones merely a project manager or is she really a manager?

For a more detailed discussion, see my article Why I Use the Term "Initiative" Rather Than "Project".