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In contemporary business and science a project is defined as a collaborative enterprise, involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim. Projects can be further defined as temporary rather than permanent social systems or work systems that are constituted by teams within or across organizations to accomplish particular tasks under time constraints. An on-going project is usually called (or evolves into) a program.

The word project comes from the Latin word projectum from the Latin verb proicere, “before an action” which in turn comes from pro-, which denotes precedence, something that comes before something else in time (paralleling the Greek πρό) and iacere, “to do”. The word “project” thus actually originally meant “before an action”.