Projects are undertaken at all levels of the organization. They may involve a single person or many thousands. Their duration ranges from a few weeks to more than five years. Projects may involve a single unit of one organization or may cross organizational boundaries, as in joint ventures and partnering. Projects are critical to the realization of the performing organization's business strategy because projects are a means by which strategy is implemented. Temporary means that every project has a definite beginning and a definite end. The end is reached when the project's objectives have been achieved, or when it becomes clear that the project objectives will not or cannot be met, or the need for the project no longer exists and the project is terminated. Temporary does not necessarily mean short in duration; many projects last for several years. In every case, however, the duration of a project is finite; projects are not ongoing efforts. In addition, Temporary does not generally apply to the product or service created by the project. Projects may often have intended and unintended social, economic, and environmental impacts that far outlast the projects themselves. Most project are undertaken to create a lasting result. For example, a project to erect a national monument will create a result expected to last centuries. A series of projects and/or complementary projects in parallel may be required to achieve a strategic objective. Managing communication of internal and external stakeholders is managing all communication to satisfy the requirements of the project stakeholders while addressing all communication issues occurring during project execution. The acquisition and distribution of project information is the most important aspect of communication management. For example, a project manager may create a weekly project status report generated by end of day. Friday, and then send it to the stakeholders for review and comments. Project managers are fully responsible for deciding what project information is created and distributed to their stakeholders. As the project progresses, project managers need to establish a rhythm for the project and ensure that their stakeholders receive the project information in a timely manner and on a consistent basis. For example, a project manager can create a weekly performance report depicting the rate or progress on cost and schedule. Doing this allows the project manager to calculate the remaining work on the project. Risk management includes all aspects of managing project risk. Project managers must be observing and monitoring risks on a regular basis to ensure they do not affect the project negatively. Human resource management includes all aspects of managing the team members who are working on a project. On most projects, managing project team members can be challenging because often the project manager is not the team member' s direct supervisor. Therefore, the project manager is working under a week matrix structure and must continually work closely with the functional manager for their resource' s time. This can be a difficult situation for project managers, but unfortunately, it is the norm in most companies. Every project must have a maximum time, or an ending point when it must be finished. Similarly, every project must have a maximum budget, or a maximum amount of money that can be spent. Resources are the people that the project uses. Every project must have a list of resources that it can use. Risk is something that makes the project take longer than planned, or cost more than planned. The term project management is sometimes used to describe an organizational approach to the management of ongoing operations. This approach, more properly called management by projects, treats many aspects or ongoing operations as projects to apply project management techniques to them. Although an understanding of project management is critical to an organization that is managing by projects, a detailed discussion fo the approach itself is outside the scope of this document.