The Difference Between Projects and Processes

Designed by Kevin Laity for the Noun Project

Starting a new project is an exciting experience that often requires new ways of thinking. However, when faced with multiple competing deadlines, we can be quick to treat a project like a process for the sake of efficiency. This could prove to be detrimental not only to the new project, but to existing processes and worse – to the overall growth of an enterprise. In Startup Leadership, author and professor Derek Lidow shares the dangers of confusing projects with processes:

Confusion between projects and process stifles growth and destroys value, causing a great frustration among many entrepreneurs…Whether their mission is to make money or to create social good, everything an enterprise creates is the largely the result of its projects and processes. 

Lidow summarizes the major differences between projects and processes and some important ways that they relate to one another: 

Projects

• Have never done this before.

• Goals are about creating something new or about implementing a change.

• Project objectives and plans can be changed by whoever gives the project team its mandate and resources, provided the team also agrees.

• Significant leadership is required to plan and execute a successful project.

• Projects create change.

Processes

• Do the same thing repeatedly.

• Goal is to create value by repeatively performing a task.

• Processes can be successfully changed only with significant planning and investment (a project is required to change a process).

• Processes are managed, not led, unless they are to be changed.

• Processes resist change.

Projects and processes are completely different and Derek Lidow stresses that understanding their differences – and how they interrelate – is crucial to growth. In order to grow an enterprise properly, projects and processes must be used in balance.

Learn why Derek Lidow thinks real innovation comes from projects, in his Wall Street Journal article.