When is a task a Project?

Tasks are simple and relatively easy to accomplish. They become projects when it takes longer than 2 hours to complete.

Unfortunately, there is no real science to this question. I would say that a project is an initiative (corporate or otherwise) that has resources and a timeline assigned to it. To answer your question when is a task a project, I'll start by defininga task. A task is an action that has nothing underneath it - no "sub tasks" It would literally be the step by step process to complete a process. However, using this definition of a task would cause project plans and timelines to bloat with unecessary detail. (Not to mention take an enormous amount of time to develop.) So the trick is to determine what tasks can be grouped together and defined as a single task. In my experience, single tasks that are similar and somewhat repetitive are easy to group together as a single task. For example some tasks might be 1. backup existing OS 2. insert NT CD 3. reboot machine 4. Install NT ... very detailed,but useless to anyone but the person doing it. I would group all of these tasks into one task called "Upgrade workstat

It cut off my answer - let me continue.
"Upgrade workstation 001" I could take up another level and say "Upgrade workstations 001 through 100". The task definition also depends on the responsibility. I may have a task such "Upgrade workstations" that the IT department is totally responsible for completing. I may have this as a single task in my project plan, but the IT manager would have the more detailed description of the tasks needed to complete the project. To make a long story short (too late) the answer is disappointingly - "It is all relative" To some it may be a single task, but that single task to others, may be a complete project.

A project is any series of activities and tasks that:
-Has a specific objective to be completed within specifictaions.
-Has a defined start and end dates(i.e., a schedule)
-Has a budget
-Requires resources as in money, people and equipment
-Happens only once and is then finished.