We are working on a couple of paper where a concise definition of hard and soft projects would be helpful. Most commentary on the subject seems very imprecise and based on tangible v intangible.
Tangible means perceptible by touch, but a piece of artwork (say a painting) can be touched! However, if the creation of the artwork is treated as a project, in almost all other respect the project is a soft project, the same goes for most design projects. The concept of a soft project is one where stakeholder engagement and change are welcome, with a focus on achieving the greatest value or stakeholder satisfaction at completion.
We suggest the primary differentiation between the two, is the various components of a hard project have to literally fit together, this required a detailed design to be finalized for each subassembly, before necessary parts can be procured and assembled. Furthermore, the overall design has to be progressed to a stage where there is a high degree of confidence the subassemblies will fit together into components and the components will fit together to create a final product that functions correctly and meets the specified requirements.
This means a hard project needs the detailed design of each subassembly or component to be completed before the project team can start working on the component and each component has to be built to the design. Change is a complex and often expensive process.
In contrast, the detailed design of components in soft projects can be, and very often is, done as part of the work involved in developing the element. While the function of the component is likely to be set in the overall design, how the functionality is delivered is flexible and most changes can be accommodated comparatively easily. In essence, agile is designed to deliver soft projects.
There is of course the added complication that most hard projects include a significant element of software, and many soft projects include some hardware.
These factors suggest the definition of hard and soft projects should be:
A hard project is one where the majority of the work is dependent on a finalised design being complete for each element of the project, prior to work starting on that element.
A soft project is one where the majority of the work has a degree of flexibility on how the required functionality is achieved.
What do you think??