Process Management Vs Project Management : What is the Difference and What’s Right For You?

The project vs project discussion is not new. Even though the definitions of both these terms seem to delineate the difference clearly, there appears to be an overlap in practical applications. While both are integral to businesses, depending on the end result you want to achieve, you have to choose one or the other.

In this article, we’ll see exactly what the differences are and how to choose the right one for your requirements. But first…

Meet Chet

Chet works in the financial department of a midsize company. Every day, Chet has some tasks to get done. Some of them are routine things like processing all the travel reimbursements for the day. Some of them are associated with a short-term project, like gathering the numbers for a new presentation that his boss Angela wants. And some of them are just random things like submitting his roster for the upcoming inter-office curling tournament.

What is Process Management?

For Chet, handling the reimbursement claims is an example of a business process. It’s a system that has been set up to be done the same way every time.

A process is a set of data and a path for that data to follow. Think of it like a roller coaster. The car you sit in is like a form that captures a certain type of data. Then, the car goes along a predetermined process to bring it to completion.

Like projects, processes are collaborative. But unlike projects, processes can also included automated system tasks. All of the tasks for completion are known beforehand. Processes can include conditions and parallel branches to direct the data in different ways, but all of the structure is set up beforehand.

Processes can handle unlimited volume. With proper maintenance, a roller coaster can handle an unlimited number of rides. A process can continue to exist indefinitely as well, unlike a task and a project which have end dates.

The goal of process management is efficiency. 

Process management tries to reduce the friction in the process to zero. It wants things to happen faster and more efficiently all the time, including identifying opportunities for automation.

The key features of process management software are intelligent design and integration with other software. 

At every point in the process, the person or system should have all of the information needed and nothing more. Data can also be pulled and pushed from existing data sets and complementary functional software such as financial or HR-related software.

Data in process management software moves automatically. 

No one needs to push the data; it just flows on its own. Data on the process can also be gathered and analyzed to determine how well the process is functioning.

What is Project Management?

In Chet’s example, Angela’s presentation is a project. It’s a one-off event that has a specific end date. Since Chet’s team doesn’t normally do these presentations, Angela quickly assigned roles to different people. Chet knows he’s gathering the data for a particular chart right now. What he doesn’t know is that, later, Angela is going to ask him to find some images online to make the slides better.

Projects are generally collaborative. They involve a team of people doing several different tasks. Projects also have an end date and are not usually repeated in the exact same way.

The exact steps to complete the project aren’t always known at the beginning. The team might have an idea of how to execute a project, but they aren’t 100% confident. Projects have a lot of uncertainty about them, and tasks are often assigned ad-hoc depending on who is available or most skilled.

Projects also tend to have a limit on volume. There are only so many projects a team can take on at one time. Some common examples of project management are Kissflow Project, Trello, Basecamp, Asana, and Wrike. Many of these use a drag-and-drop interface where it is easy to create and assign tasks.