ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with the historical background of a project. Starting from the first project of humankind to build his own habitat – a simple house – this chapter goes on to describe examples of formidable projects like the Great Pyramid of Gaza in Egypt, Mayan temples of Central America, Mohenjo-Daro structures in ancient India, Acropolis of Greece, the Great Wall of China etc. Definition of a project is discussed next, along with the distinctive features of a modern project such as change, cost, time, temporariness, uniqueness, resource dependency, and focus on people, uncertainty and risk etc. Also, the three basic features of a project, viz., intended outcome of a project, time span and cost to complete, are also explained. This chapter ends with a brief deliberation on the different stages of a project life cycle, viz., idea stage, appraisal stage, implementation stage and evaluation stage.
