---
title: What are projects and campaigns?
url: https://tideswell.xyz/docs/projects
description: Projects hold related tasks. Campaigns hold related projects. Together they answer what a team is working towards.
---

> Documentation index: fetch https://tideswell.xyz/llms.txt to discover every page before exploring further.

# What are projects and campaigns?



A **project** is a named body of work inside one team, with a lead, dates, and tasks under
it. A **campaign** sits above projects and spans teams. If <Ref to="tasks" /> answers "what
am I doing today", this section answers "what are we working towards".

Fairgreen Golf Co. runs a campaign called Autumn drop. Under it sit a Marketing project for
the shoot and the emails, and a Production project for the sampling and the factory dates.

## What does a project give you that a task list does not? [#what-does-a-project-give-you-that-a-task-list-does-not]

Four things, all of which are the answer to a question somebody asks in a Monday meeting.

* **A lead.** One named person accountable, set separately from who is assigned the tasks.
* **Dates.** A start and a target, which is what puts the project on a timeline as a bar.
* **Milestones.** Dated checkpoints inside the project, so "samples approved" is visible
  without being somebody's to-do.
* **Progress.** A live count of scope against completed, with a percentage bar and open-task
  counts per person, computed from the tasks and their sub-tasks rather than typed in.

A project also gets its own **Overview**, **List**, **Board** and **Calendar**, so the team
working in it has everything in one place.

## Why does a campaign exist above that? [#why-does-a-campaign-exist-above-that]

Because the work of a launch does not sit in one team, and no single project can hold it.

The Autumn drop needs Marketing, Production and Warehouse. Each of those wants its own
project with its own lead and its own board, and the person running the launch needs to see
all three on one timeline.

That is what a campaign is: the band across the roadmap that the separate projects hang from.
A project points at one campaign, and a campaign spans as many teams as it needs.

## When would you use each one? [#when-would-you-use-each-one]

Start a **project** when a piece of work has several tasks, a person accountable for it, and
an end. "Autumn lookbook shoot" is a project. "Book the studio" is a task inside it.

Start a **campaign** when two or more teams are working towards the same date. If only one
team is involved, a project on its own is enough and a campaign adds a layer for nothing.

Use a **cycle** when you want a time-box rather than a body of work. A cycle is a named,
dated container that cuts across every team and project at once, which is a different shape
from both. See <Ref to="projects/cycles" />.

## What is something else better for? [#what-is-something-else-better-for]

* **Work that never ends**, like a weekly stock count, is a repeating task rather than a
  project. See <Ref to="tasks/make-a-task-repeat" />.
* **A thing you are tracking** rather than a body of work you are doing is a record. See
  <Ref to="objects" />.
* **A plan of what goes out and when**, before any of it is real work, lives on a project's
  Overview as planned items. See <Ref to="projects/plan-what-goes-out" />.

## Read this section in order [#read-this-section-in-order]

<Ref to="projects/start-a-project" /> is the place to begin, and covers the properties that
matter on day one. <Ref to="projects/milestones" /> adds the checkpoints.

<Ref to="projects/set-up-a-campaign" /> is worth reading once you have more than one team
working towards a date. <Ref to="projects/use-the-roadmap" /> is where all of it comes
together on one timeline, and it is the screen most people end up living in.