Project Management Glossary

PM Glossary / Project Management Glossary

Acceptance Test-Driven Development ATDD: A method of collaboratively creating acceptance test criteria that are used to create acceptance tests before delivery begins.
Accepted Deliverables: Products, results, or capabilities produced by a project and validated by the project customer or sponsors as meeting their specified acceptance criteria.
Accuracy: Within the quality management system, accuracy is an assessment of correctness.
Acquire Resources: The process of obtaining team members, facilities, equipment, materials, supplies, and other resources necessary to complete project work.
Acquisition: Obtaining human and material resources necessary to perform project activities. Acquisition implies a cost of resources, and is not necessarily financial.
Activity: A distinct, scheduled portion of work performed during the course of a project.
Activity Attributes: Multiple attributes associated with each schedule activity that can be included within the activity list. Activity attributes include activity codes, predecessor activities, successor activities, logical relationships, leads and lags, resource requirements, imposed dates, constraints, and assumptions.
Activity Code: An alphanumeric value assigned to each activity that enables classifying, sorting, and filtering. See also activity identifier and activity label.
Activity Duration: The time in calendar units between the start and finish of a schedule activity. See also duration.
Activity Duration Estimates: The quantitative assessments of the likely number of time periods that are required to complete an activity.
Activity Identifier: A unique alphanumeric value assigned to an activity and used to differentiate that activity from other activities. See also activity code and activity label.
Activity Label: A phrase that names and describes an activity. See also activity code and activity identifier.
Activity List: A documented tabulation of schedule activities that shows the activity description, activity identifier, and a sufficiently detailed scope of work description so project team members understand what work is to be performed.
Activity-on-Node: See precedence diagramming method PDM.
Actual Cost: The realized cost incurred for the work performed on an activity during a specific time period. See also budget at completion BAC, earned value EV, estimate at completion EAC, estimate to complete ETC, and planned value PV.
Actual Cost (AC): The realized cost incurred for the work performed on an activity during a specific time period. See also budget at completion (BAC), earned value (EV), estimate at completion (EAC), estimate to complete (ETC), and planned value (PV).
Actual Duration: The time in calendar units between the actual start date of the schedule activity and either the data date of the project schedule if the schedule activity is in progress or the actual finish date if the schedule activity is complete.
Adaptive Life Cycle: A project life cycle that is iterative or incremental.
Agile: A term used to describe a mindset of values and principles as set forth in the Agile Manifesto.
Agile Coach: An individual with knowledge and experience in agile who can train, mentor, and guide organizations and teams through their transformation.
Agile Life Cycle: An approach that is both iterative and incremental to refine work items and deliver frequently.
Agile Manifesto: The original and official definition of agile values and principles.
Agile Mindset: A way of thinking and behaving underpinned by the four values and twelve principles of the Agile Manifesto.
Agile Practitioner: A person embracing the agile mindset who collaborates with like-minded colleagues in cross-functional teams. Also referred to as agilist.
Agile Principles: The twelve principles of agile project delivery as embodied in the Agile Manifesto.
Agile Unified Process: A simplistic and understandable approach to developing business application software using agile techniques and concepts. It is a simplified version of the Rational Unified Process aka RUP.
Agilist: See Agile Practitioner.
Agreements: Any document or communication that defines the initial intentions of a project. This can take the form of a contract, memorandum of understanding MOU, letters of agreement, verbal agreements, email, etc.
Alternative Analysis: A technique used to evaluate identified options in order to select the options or approaches to use to execute and perform the work of the project.
Analogous Estimating: A technique for estimating the duration or cost of an activity or a project using historical data from a similar activity or project. See also bottom-up estimating, parametric estimating, program evaluation and review technique (PERT), and three-point estimating.
Analytical Techniques: Various techniques used to evaluate, analyze, or forecast potential outcomes based on possible variations of project or environmental variables and their relationships with other variables.
Anti-Pattern: A known, flawed pattern of work that is not advisable.
Apportioned Effort: An activity where effort is allotted proportionately across certain discrete efforts and not divisible into discrete efforts. [Note: Apportioned effort is one of three earned value management (EVM) types of activities used to measure work performance. See also discrete effort and level of effort.
Assumption: A factor in the planning process considered to be true, real, or certain, without proof or demonstration.
Assumption Log: A project document used to record all assumptions and constraints throughout the project life cycle.
Attribute Sampling: Method of measuring quality that consists of noting the presence or absence of some characteristic attribute in each of the units under consideration.
Authority: The right to apply project resources, expend funds, make decisions, or give approvals.
Automated Code Quality Analysis: The scripted testing of code base for bugs and vulnerabilities.
Backlog: See {Product Backlog}.
Backlog Refinement: The progressive elaboration of project requirements and/or the ongoing activity in which the team collaboratively reviews, updates, and writes requirements to satisfy the need of the customer request.
Backward Pass: A critical path method technique for calculating the late start and late finish dates by working backward through the schedule model from the project end date. See also forward pass.
Baseline: The approved version of a work product that can be changed using formal change control procedures and is used as the basis for comparison to actual results. See also cost baseline, performance measurement baseline, schedule baseline, and scope baseline.
Basis of Estimates: Supporting documentation outlining the details used in establishing project estimates such as assumptions, constraints, level of detail, ranges, and confidence levels.
Behavior-Driven Development: A system design and validation practice that uses test-first principles and English-like scripts.
Benchmarking: Benchmarking is the comparison of actual or planned products, processes, and practices to those of comparable organizations to identify best practices, generate ideas for improvement, and provide a basis for measuring performance.
Benefits Management Plan: The documented explanation defining the processes for creating, maximizing, and sustaining the benefits provided by a project or program.
Bid Documents: All documents used to solicit information, quotations, or proposals from prospective sellers.
Bidder Conference: The meetings with prospective sellers prior to the preparation of a bid or proposal to ensure all prospective vendors have a clear and common understanding of the procurement. Also known as contractor conferences, vendor conferences, or pre-bid conferences.
Blended Agile: Two or more agile frameworks, methods, elements, or practices used together such as Scrum practiced in combination with XP and Kanban Method.
Blocker: See Impediment.
Bottom-Up Estimating: A method of estimating project duration or cost by aggregating the estimates of the lower-level components of the work breakdown structure (WBS). See also analogous estimating, parametric estimating, program evaluation and review technique (PERT), and three-point estimating.
Broken Comb: Refers to a person with various depths of specialization in multiple skills required by the team. Also known as Paint Drip. See also T-shaped and I-shaped.
Budget: The approved estimate for the project or any work breakdown structure component or any schedule activity.
Budget at Completion (BAC): The sum of all budgets established for the work to be performed. See also actual cost (AC), earned value (EV), estimate at completion (EAC), estimate to complete (ETC), and planned value (PV).
Buffer: See reserve.
Burndown Chart: A graphical representation of the work remaining versus the time left in a timebox.
Burnup Chart: A graphical representation of the work completed toward the release of a product.
Business Case: A documented economic feasibility study used to establish validity of the benefits of a selected component lacking sufficient definition and that is used as a basis for the authorization of further project management activities.
Business Requirement Documents: Listing of all requirements for a specific project.
Business Value: The net quantifiable benefit derived from a business endeavor. The benefit may be tangible, intangible, or both.
Cadence: A rhythm of execution. See also {Timebox}.
Cause and Effect Diagram: A decomposition technique that helps trace an undesirable effect back to its root cause.
Change: A modification to any formally controlled deliverable, project management plan component, or project document.
Change Control: A process whereby modifications to documents, deliverables, or baselines associated with the project are identified, documented, approved, or rejected. See also change control board and change control system.
Change Control Board: A formally chartered group responsible for reviewing, evaluating, approving, delaying, or rejecting changes to the project, and for recording and communicating such decisions. See also change control and change control system.
Change Control System: A set of procedures that describes how modifications to the project deliverables and documentation are managed and controlled. See also change control and change control board.
Change Control Tools: Manual or automated tools to assist with change and/or configuration management. At a minimum, the tools should support the activities of the CCB.
Change Log: A comprehensive list of changes submitted during the project and their current status.
Change Management Plan: A component of the project management plan that establishes the change control board, documents the extent of its authority, and describes how the change control system will be implemented.
Change Request: A formal proposal to modify a document, deliverable, or baseline.
Checklist Analysis: A technique for systematically reviewing materials using a list for accuracy and completeness.
Checksheets: A tally sheet that can be used as a checklist when gathering data.
Claim: A request, demand, or assertion of rights by a seller against a buyer, or vice versa, for consideration, compensation, or payment under the terms of a legally binding contract, such as for a disputed change.
Claims Administration: The process of processing, adjudicating, and communicating contract claims.
Close Project or Phase: The process of finalizing all activities for the project, phase, or contract.
Code of Accounts: A numbering system used to uniquely identify each component of the work breakdown structure.
Collect Requirements: The process of determining, documenting, and managing stakeholder needs and requirements to meet project objectives.
Collective Code Ownership: A project acceleration and collaboration technique whereby any team member is authorized to modify any project work product or deliverable, thus emphasizing team-wide ownership and accountability.
Colocation: An organizational placement strategy where the project team members are physically located close to one another in order to improve communication, working relationships, and productivity.
Communication Methods: A systematic procedure, technique, or process used to transfer information among project stakeholders.
Communication Models: A description, analogy, or schematic used to represent how the communication process will be performed for the project.
Communication Requirements Analysis: An analytical technique to determine the information needs of the project stakeholders through interviews, workshops, study of lessons learned from previous projects, etc.
Communication Styles Assessment: A technique to identify the preferred communication method, format, and content for stakeholders for planned communication activities.
Communication Technology: Specific tools, systems, computer programs, etc., used to transfer information among project stakeholders.
Communications Management Plan: A component of the project, program, or portfolio management plan that describes how, when, and by whom information will be administered and disseminated. See also project management plan.
Conduct Procurements: The process of obtaining seller responses, selecting a seller, and awarding a contract.
Configuration Management Plan: A component of the project management plan that describes how to identify and account for project artifacts under configuration control, and how to record and report changes to them.
Configuration Management System: A collection of procedures used to track project artifacts and monitor and control changes to these artifacts.
Conformance: Within the quality management system, conformance is a general concept of delivering results that fall within the limits that define acceptable variation for a quality requirement.
Constraint: A factor that limits the options for managing a project, program, portfolio, or process.
Contingency: An event or occurrence that could affect the execution of the project that may be accounted for with a reserve.
Contingency Plan: A document describing actions that the project team can take if predetermined trigger conditions occur.
Contingency Reserve: Time or money allocated in the schedule or cost baseline for known risks with active response strategies. See also management reserve and project budget.
Contingent Response Strategies: Responses provided which may be used in the event that a specific trigger occurs.
Continuous Delivery: The practice of delivering feature increments immediately to customers, often through the use of small batches of work and automation technology.
Continuous Integration: A practice in which each team member’s work products are frequently integrated and validated with one another.
Contract: A contract is a mutually binding agreement that obligates the seller to provide the specified product or service or result and obligates the buyer to pay for it.
Contract Change Control System: The system used to collect, track, adjudicate, and communicate changes to a contract.
Control: Comparing actual performance with planned performance, analyzing variances, assessing trends to effect process improvements, evaluating possible alternatives, and recommending appropriate corrective action as needed.
Control Account: A management control point where scope, budget, actual cost, and schedule are integrated and compared to earned value for performance measurement.
Control Chart: A graphic display of process data over time and against established control limits, which has a centerline that assists in detecting a trend of plotted values toward either control limit.
Control Costs: The process of monitoring the status of the project to update the project costs and manage changes to the cost baseline.
Control Limits: The area composed of three standard deviations on either side of the centerline or mean of a normal distribution of data plotted on a control chart, which reflects the expected variation in the data. See also specification limits.
Control Procurements: The process of managing procurement relationships, monitoring contract performance, making changes and corrections as appropriate, and closing out contracts.
Control Quality: The process of monitoring and recording results of executing the quality management activities to assess performance and ensure the project outputs are complete, correct, and meet customer expectations.
Control Resources: The process of ensuring that the physical resources assigned and allocated to the project are available as planned, as well as monitoring the planned versus actual utilization of resources and performing corrective action as necessary.
Control Schedule: The process of monitoring the status of the project to update the project schedule and manage changes to the schedule baseline.
Control Scope: The process of monitoring the status of the project and product scope and managing changes to the scope baseline.
Corrective Action: An intentional activity that realigns the performance of the project work with the project management plan. See also preventive action.
Cost Aggregation: Summing the lower-level cost estimates associated with the various work packages for a given level within the project’s WBS or for a given cost control account.
Cost Baseline: The approved version of work package cost estimates and contingency reserve that can be changed using formal change control procedures and is used as the basis for comparison to actual results. See also baseline, performance measurement baseline, schedule baseline, and scope baseline.
Cost Management Plan: A component of a project or program management plan that describes how costs will be planned, structured, and controlled. See also project management plan.
Cost Management Plan: A component of a project or program management plan that describes how costs will be planned, structured, and controlled. See also project management plan.
Cost of Quality: All costs incurred over the life of the product by investment in preventing nonconformance to requirements, appraisal of the product or service for conformance to requirements, and failure to meet requirements.
Cost Performance Index (CPI): A measure of the cost efficiency of budgeted resources expressed as the ratio of earned value to actual cost. See also schedule performance index (SPI).
Cost Plus Award Fee Contract: A category of contract that involves payments to the seller for all legitimate actual costs incurred for completed work, plus an award fee representing seller profit.
Cost Plus Fixed Fee Contract: A type of cost-reimbursable contract where the buyer reimburses the seller for the seller’s allowable costs allowable costs are defined by the contract plus a fixed amount of profit fee.
Cost Plus Incentive Fee Contract: A type of cost-reimbursable contract where the buyer reimburses the seller for the seller’s allowable costs allowable costs are defined by the contract, and the seller earns its profit if it meets defined performance criteria.
Cost Variance (CV): The amount of budget deficit or surplus at a given point in time, expressed as the difference between the earned value and the actual cost. See also schedule variance (SV).
Cost-Benefit Analysis: A financial analysis tool used to determine the benefits provided by a project against its costs.
Cost-Reimbursable Contract: A type of contract involving payment to the seller for the seller’s actual costs, plus a fee typically representing the seller’s profit.
Crashing: A schedule compression technique used to shorten the schedule duration for the least incremental cost by adding resources. See also fast tracking and schedule compression.
Create WBS: The process of subdividing project deliverables and project work into smaller, more manageable components.
Criteria: Standards, rules, or tests on which a judgment or decision can be based or by which a product, service, result, or process can be evaluated.
Critical Chain Method: A schedule method that allows the project team to place buffers on any project schedule path to account for limited resources and project uncertainties.
Critical Path: The sequence of activities that represents the longest path through a project, which determines the shortest possible duration. See also critical path activity and critical path method.
Critical Path Activity: Any activity on the critical path in a project schedule. See also critical path and critical path method.
Critical Path Method: A method used to estimate the minimum project duration and determine the amount of scheduling flexibility on the logical network paths within the schedule model. See also critical path and critical path activity.
Cross-Functional Team: A team that includes practitioners with all the skills necessary to deliver valuable product increments.
Crystal Family of Methodologies: A collection of lightweight agile software development methods focused on adaptability to a particular circumstance.
Daily Scrum: A brief, daily collaboration meeting in which the team reviews progress from the previous day, declares intentions for the current day, and highlights any obstacles encountered or anticipated. Also known as daily standup.
Data: Discrete, unorganized, unprocessed measurements or raw observations.
Data Analysis Techniques: Techniques used to organize, assess, and evaluate data and information.
Data Date: A point in time when the status of the project is recorded.
Data Gathering Techniques: Techniques used to collect data and information from a variety of sources.
Data Representation Techniques: Graphic representations or other methods used to convey data and information.
Decision Tree Analysis: A diagramming and calculation technique for evaluating the implications of a chain of multiple options in the presence of uncertainty.
Decision-Making Techniques: Techniques used to select a course of action from different alternatives.
Decomposition: A technique used for dividing and subdividing the project scope and project deliverables into smaller, more manageable parts.
Defect: An imperfection or deficiency in a project component where that component does not meet its requirements or specifications and needs to be either repaired or replaced.
Defect Repair: An intentional activity to modify a nonconforming product or product component.
Define Activities: The process of identifying and documenting the specific actions to be performed to produce the project deliverables.
Define Scope: The process of developing a detailed description of the project and product.
Definition of Done: A team’s checklist of all the criteria required to be met so that a deliverable can be considered ready for customer use.
Definition of Ready: A team’s checklist for a user-centric requirement that has all the information the team needs to be able to begin working on it.
Deliverable: Any unique and verifiable product, result, or capability to perform a service that is produced to complete a process, phase, or project.
Dependency: See logical relationship.
Determine Budget: The process of aggregating the estimated costs of individual activities or work packages to establish an authorized cost baseline.
Develop Project Charter: The process of developing a document that formally authorizes the existence of a project and provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities.
Develop Project Management Plan: The process of defining, preparing, and coordinating all plan components and consolidating them into an integrated project management plan.
Develop Schedule: The process of analyzing activity sequences, durations, resource requirements, and schedule constraints to create the project schedule model for project execution and monitoring and controlling.
Develop Team: The process of improving competences, team member interaction, and overall team environment to enhance project performance.
Development Approach: The method used to create and evolve the product, service, or result during the project life cycle, such as predictive, iterative, incremental, agile, or a hybrid method.
DevOps: A collection of practices for creating a smooth flow of delivery by improving collaboration between development and operations staff.
Diagramming Techniques: Approaches to presenting information with logical linkages that aid in understanding.
Direct and Manage Project Work: The process of leading and performing the work defined in the project management plan and implementing approved changes to achieve the project’s objectives.
Disciplined Agile: A process decision framework that enables simplified process decisions around incremental and iterative solution delivery.
Discrete Effort: An activity that can be planned and measured and that yields a specific output. [Note: Discrete effort is one of three earned value management (EVM) types of activities used to measure work performance.] See also apportioned effort and level of effort.
Discretionary Dependency: A relationship that is established based on knowledge of best practices within a particular application area or an aspect of the project where a specific sequence is desired.
Documentation Reviews: The process of gathering a corpus of information and reviewing it to determine accuracy and completeness.
Double Loop Learning: A process that challenges underlying values and assumptions in order to better elaborate root causes and devise improved countermeasures rather than focusing only on symptoms.
Duration: The total number of work periods required to complete an activity or work breakdown structure component, expressed in hours, days, or weeks. See also effort.
Dynamic Systems Development Method: An agile project delivery framework.
Early Finish Date: In the critical path method, the earliest possible point in time when the uncompleted portions of a schedule activity can finish based on the schedule network logic, the data date, and any schedule constraints. See also early start date, late start date, late finish date, and schedule network analysis.
Early Start Date: In the critical path method, the earliest possible point in time when the uncompleted portions of a schedule activity can start based on the schedule network logic, the data date, and any schedule constraints. See also early finish date, late finish date, late start date, and schedule network analysis.
Earned Value (EV): The measure of work performed expressed in terms of the budget authorized for that work. See also actual cost (AC), budget at completion, estimate at completion (EAC), estimate to complete (ETC), and planned value (PV).
Earned Value Management: A methodology that combines scope, schedule, and resource measurements to assess project performance and progress.
Effort: The number of labor units required to complete a schedule activity or work breakdown structure component, often expressed in hours, days, or weeks. See also duration.
Emotional Intelligence: The ability to identify, assess, and manage the personal emotions of oneself and other people, as well as the collective emotions of groups of people.
Enterprise Environmental Factors: Conditions, not under the immediate control of the team, that influence, constrain, or direct the project, program, or portfolio.
Estimate: A quantitative assessment of the likely amount or outcome of a variable, such as project costs, resources, effort, or durations.
Estimate Activity Resources: The process of estimating team resources and the type and quantities of material, equipment, and supplies necessary to perform project work.
Estimate at Completion (EAC): The expected total cost of completing all work expressed as the sum of the actual cost to date and the estimate to complete. See also actual cost (AC), budget at completion (BAC), earned value (EV), estimate to complete (ETC) and planned value (PV).
Estimate Costs: The process of developing an approximation of the monetary resources needed to complete project work.
Estimate to Complete (ETC): The expected cost to finish all the remaining project work. See also actual cost (AC), budget at completion (BAC), earned value (EV), estimate at completion (EAC) and planned value (PV).
Evolutionary Value Delivery: Openly credited as the first agile method that contains a specific component no other methods have: the focus on delivering multiple measurable value requirements to stakeholders.
Execute: Directing, managing, performing, and accomplishing the project work; providing the deliverables; and providing work performance information.
Executing Process Group: Those processes performed to complete the work defined in the project management plan to satisfy the project requirements.
Expert Judgment: Judgment provided based upon expertise in an application area, knowledge area, discipline, industry, etc., as appropriate for the activity being performed. Such expertise may be provided by any group or person with specialized education, knowledge, skill, experience, or training.
Explicit Knowledge: Knowledge that can be codified using symbols such as words, numbers, and pictures.
External Dependency: A relationship between project activities and non-project activities.
eXtreme Programming: An agile software development method that leads to higher quality software, a greater responsiveness to changing customer requirements, and more frequent releases in shorter cycles.
Fallback Plan: Fallback plans include an alternative set of actions and tasks available in the event that the primary plan needs to be abandoned because of issues, risks, or other causes.
Fast Tracking: A schedule compression technique in which activities or phases normally done in sequence are performed in parallel for at least a portion of their duration. See also crashing and schedule compression.
Feature-Driven Development: A lightweight agile software development method driven from the perspective of features valued by clients.
Fee: Represents profit as a component of compensation to a seller.
Finish Date: A point in time associated with a schedule activity’s completion. Usually qualified by one of the following: actual, planned, estimated, scheduled, early, late, baseline, target, or current.
Finish-to-Finish: A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot finish until a predecessor activity has finished. See also finish-to-start, start-to-finish, start-to-start, and logical relationship.
Finish-to-Start: A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot start until a predecessor activity has finished. See also finish-to-finish, start-to-finish, start-to-start, and logical relationship.
Firm Fixed Price Contract: A type of fixed price contract where the buyer pays the seller a set amount as defined by the contract, regardless of the seller’s costs.
Fishbone diagram: See Cause and Effect Diagram.
Fit for Purpose: A product that is suitable for its intended purpose.
Fit for Use: A product that is usable in its current form to achieve its intended purpose.
Fixed Formula Method: A method of estimating earned value in which a specified percentage of the budget value of a work package is assigned to the start milestone and the remaining percentage is assigned when the work package is complete. See also weighted milestone method.
Fixed Price Incentive Fee Contract: A type of contract where the buyer pays the seller a set amount as defined by the contract, and the seller can earn an additional amount if the seller meets defined performance criteria.
Fixed Price with Economic Price Adjustment Contract: A fixed-price contract, but with a special provision allowing for predefined final adjustments to the contract price due to changed conditions, such as inflation changes, or cost increases or decreases for specific commodities.
Fixed-Price Contract: An agreement that sets the fee that will be paid for a defined scope of work regardless of the cost or effort to deliver it.
Flow Master: The coach for a team and service request manager working in a continuous flow or Kanban context. Equivalent to {Scrum Master}.
Flowchart: The depiction in a diagram format of the inputs, process actions, and outputs of one or more processes within a system.
Forecast: An estimate or prediction of conditions and events in the project’s future based on information and knowledge available at the time of the forecast.
Forward Pass: A critical path method technique for calculating the early start and early finish dates by working forward through the schedule model from the project start date or a given point in time. See also backward pass.
Framework: A basic system or structure of ideas or facts that support an approach.
Free Float: The amount of time that a schedule activity can be delayed without delaying the early start date of any successor or violating a schedule constraint. See also total float, critical path, near-critical activity, and near-critical path.
Functional Organization: An organizational structure in which staff is grouped by areas of specialization and the project manager has limited authority to assign work and apply resources. See also matrix organization and projectized organization.
Functional Organization: An organizational structure in which staff is grouped by areas of specialization and the project manager has limited authority to assign work and apply resources. See also matrix organization and projectized organization.
Functional Requirement: A specific behavior that a product or service should perform.
Functional Specification: A specific function that a system or application is required to perform. Typically represented in a functional specifications document.
Funding Limit Reconciliation: The process of comparing the planned expenditure of project funds against any limits on the commitment of funds for the project to identify any variances between the funding limits and the planned expenditures.
Gantt Chart: A bar chart of schedule information where activities are listed on the vertical axis, dates are shown on the horizontal axis, and activity durations are shown as horizontal bars placed according to start and finish dates.
Grade: A category or rank used to distinguish items that have the same functional use but do not share the same requirements for quality.
Ground Rules: Expectations regarding acceptable behavior by project team members.
Histogram: A bar chart that shows the graphical representation of numerical data.
Historical Information: Documents and data on prior projects including project files, records, correspondence, closed contracts, and closed projects.
Hoshin Kanri: A strategy or policy deployment method.
Hybrid Approach: A combination of two or more agile and non-agile elements, having a non-agile end result.
I-shaped: Refers to a person with a single deep area of specialization and no interest or skill in the rest of the skills required by the team. See also {T-Shaped} and {Broken Comb}.
IDEAL: An organizational improvement model that is named for the five phases it describes: initiating, diagnosing, establishing, acting, and learning.
Identify Risks: The process of identifying individual risks as well as sources of overall risk and documenting their characteristics.
Identify Stakeholders: The process of identifying project stakeholders regularly and analyzing and documenting relevant information regarding their interests, involvement, interdependencies, influence, and potential impact on project success.
Impact Mapping: A strategic planning technique that acts as a roadmap to the organization while building new products.
Impediment: An obstacle that prevents the team from achieving its objectives. Also known as a blocker.
Implement Risk Responses: The process of implementing agreed-upon risk response plans.
Imposed Date: A fixed date imposed on a schedule activity or schedule milestone, usually in the form of a “start no earlier than” and “finish no later than” date.
Incentive Fee: A set of financial incentives related to cost, schedule, or technical performance of the seller.
Increment: A functional, tested, and accepted deliverable that is a subset of the overall project outcome.
Incremental Life Cycle: An approach that provides finished deliverables that the customer may be able to use immediately. An adaptive project life cycle in which the deliverable is produced through a series of iterations that successively add functionality within a predetermined time frame. The deliverable contains the necessary and sufficient capability to be considered complete only after the final iteration.
Independent Estimates: A process of using a third party to obtain and analyze information to support prediction of cost, schedule, or other items.
Influence Diagram: A graphical representation of situations showing causal influences, time ordering of events, and other relationships among variables and outcomes.
Information: Organized or structured data, processed for a specific purpose to make it meaningful, valuable, and useful in specific contexts.
Information Management Systems: Facilities, processes, and procedures used to collect, store, and distribute information between producers and consumers of information in physical or electronic format.
Information Radiator: A visible, physical display that provides information to the rest of the organization enabling up-to-the-minute knowledge sharing without having to disturb the team.
Initiating Process Group: Those processes performed to define a new project or a new phase of an existing project by obtaining authorization to start the project or phase.
Input: Any item, whether internal or external to the project, which is required by a process before that process proceeds. May be an output from a predecessor process.
Inspection: Examination of a work product to determine whether it conforms to documented standards.
Interpersonal and Team Skills: Skills used to effectively lead and interact with team members and other stakeholders.
Interpersonal Skills: Skills used to establish and maintain relationships with other people.
Interviews: A formal or informal approach to elicit information from stakeholders by talking to them directly.
Invitation for Bid: Generally, this term is equivalent to request for proposal. However, in some application areas, it may have a narrower or more specific meaning.
Issue: A current condition or situation that may have an impact on the project objectives.
Issue Log: A project document where information about issues is recorded and monitored.
Iteration: A timeboxed cycle of development on a product or deliverable in which all of the work that is needed to deliver value is performed.
Iterative Life Cycle: An approach that allows feedback for unfinished work to improve and modify that work. A project life cycle where the project scope is generally determined early in the project life cycle, but time and cost estimates are routinely modified as the project team’s understanding of the product increases. Iterations develop the product through a series of repeated cycles, while increments successively add to the functionality of the product.
Kaizen Events: Events aimed at improvement of the system.
Kanban Board: A visualization tool that enables improvements to the flow of work by making bottlenecks and work quantities visible.
Kanban Method: An agile method inspired by the original Kanban inventory control system and used specifically for knowledge work.
Knowledge: A mixture of experience, values and beliefs, contextual information, intuition, and insight that people use to make sense of new experiences and information.
Lag: The amount of time whereby a successor activity will be delayed with respect to a predecessor activity. See also lead.
Large Scale Scrum: Large-Scale Scrum is a product development framework that extends Scrum with scaling guidelines while preserving the original purposes of Scrum.
Late Finish Date: In the critical path method, the latest possible point in time when the uncompleted portions of a schedule activity can finish based on the schedule network logic, the project completion date, and any schedule constraints. See also early finish date, early start date, late start date, and schedule network analysis.
Late Start Date: In the critical path method, the latest possible point in time when the uncompleted portions of a schedule activity can start based on the schedule network logic, the project completion date, and any schedule constraints. See also early finish date, late finish date, early start date, and schedule network analysis.
Lead: The amount of time whereby a successor activity can be advanced with respect to a predecessor activity. See also lag.
Lean Software Development: Lean software development is an adaptation of lean manufacturing principles and practices to the software development domain and is based on a set of principles and practices for achieving quality, speed, and customer alignment.
Lessons Learned: The knowledge gained during a project which shows how project events were addressed or should be addressed in the future for the purpose of improving future performance.
Lessons Learned Register: A project document used to record knowledge gained during a project so that it can be used in the current project and entered into the lessons learned repository.
Lessons Learned Repository: A store of historical information about lessons learned in projects.
Level of Effort: An activity that does not produce definitive end products and is measured by the passage of time. [Note: Level of effort is one of three earned value management (EVM) types of activities used to measure work performance.] See also apportioned effort and discrete effort.
Life Cycle: The process through which a product is imagined, created, and put into use.
Log: A document used to record and describe or denote selected items identified during execution of a process or activity. Usually used with a modifier, such as issue, change, issue, or assumption.
Logical Relationship: A dependency between two activities or between an activity and a milestone. See also finish-to-finish, finish-to-start, start-to-finish, and start-to-start.
Make-or-Buy Analysis: The process of gathering and organizing data about product requirements and analyzing them against available alternatives including the purchase or internal manufacture of the product.
Make-or-Buy Decisions: Decisions made regarding the external purchase or internal manufacture of a product.
Manage Communications: Manage Communications is the process of ensuring timely and appropriate collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management, monitoring, and the ultimate disposition of project information.
Manage Project Knowledge: The process of using existing knowledge and creating new knowledge to achieve the project’s objectives and contribute to organizational learning.
Manage Quality: The process of translating the quality management plan into executable quality activities that incorporate the organization’s quality policies into the project.
Manage Stakeholder Engagement: The process of communicating and working with stakeholders to meet their needs and expectations, address issues, and foster appropriate stakeholder involvement.
Manage Team: The process of tracking team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and managing team changes to optimize project performance.
Management Reserve: Time or money that management sets aside in addition to the schedule or cost baseline and releases for unforeseen work that is within the scope of the project. See also contingency reserve and project budget.
Management Skills: The ability to plan, organize, direct, and control individuals or groups of people to achieve specific goals.
Mandatory Dependency: A relationship that is contractually required or inherent in the nature of the work.
Master Schedule: A summary-level project schedule that identifies the major deliverables and work breakdown structure components and key schedule milestones. See also milestone schedule.
Matrix Diagrams: A quality management and control tool used to perform data analysis within the organizational structure created in the matrix. The matrix diagram seeks to show the strength of relationships between factors, causes, and objectives that exist between the rows and columns that form the matrix.
Matrix Organization: An organizational structure in which the project manager shares authority with the functional manager temporarily to assign work and apply resources. See also functional organization and projectized organization.
Methodology: A system of practices, techniques, procedures, and rules used by those who work in a discipline.
Milestone: A significant point or event in a project, program, or portfolio.
Milestone Schedule: A type of schedule that presents milestones with planned dates.
Mind-Mapping: A technique used to consolidate ideas created through individual brainstorming sessions into a single map to reflect commonality and differences in understanding and to generate new ideas.
Mobbing: A technique in which multiple team members focus simultaneously and coordinate their contributions on a particular work item.
Monitor: Collect project performance data, produce performance measures, and report and disseminate performance information.
Monitor and Control Project Work: The process of tracking, reviewing, and reporting overall progress to meet the performance objectives defined in the project management plan.
Monitor Communications: The process of ensuring that the information needs of the project and its stakeholders are met.
Monitor Risks: The process of monitoring the implementation of agreed-upon risk response plans, tracking identified risks, identifying and analyzing new risks, and evaluating risk process effectiveness throughout the project.
Monitor Stakeholder Engagement: The process of monitoring project stakeholder relationships, and tailoring strategies for engaging stakeholders through the modification of engagement strategies and plans.
Monitoring and Controlling Process Group: Those processes required to track, review, and regulate the progress and performance of the project; identify any areas in which changes to the plan are required; and initiate the corresponding changes.
Monte Carlo Simulation: An analysis technique where a computer model is iterated many times, with the input values chosen at random for each iteration driven by the input data, including probability distributions and probabilistic branches. Outputs are generated to represent the range of possible outcomes for the project.
Most Likely Duration: An estimate of the most probable activity duration that takes into account all of the known variables that could affect performance. See also optimistic duration, and pessimistic duration.
Multicriteria Decision Analysis: This technique utilizes a decision matrix to provide a systematic analytical approach for establishing criteria, such as risk levels, uncertainty, and valuation, to evaluate and rank many ideas.
Near-Critical Activity: An activity with a total float that is deemed to be low based on expert judgment. See also critical path, free float, near-critical path, and total float.
Near-Critical Path: A sequence of activities with low float which, if exhausted, becomes a critical path sequence for the project. See also critical path, free float, near-critical activity, and total float.
Network: See project schedule network diagram.
Network Logic: All activity dependencies in a project schedule network diagram. See also early finish date, early start date, late finish date, late start date, and network path.
Network Path: A sequence of activities connected by logical relationships in a project schedule network diagram. See also early finish date, early start date, late finish date, late start date, and network logic.
Networking: Establishing connections and relationships with other people from the same or other organizations.
Node: A point at which dependency lines connect on a schedule network diagram. See also precedence diagramming method (PDM) and project schedule network diagram.
Nominal Group Technique: A technique that enhances brainstorming with a voting process used to rank the most useful ideas for further brainstorming or for prioritization.
Objective: Something toward which work is to be directed, a strategic position to be attained, a purpose to be achieved, a result to be obtained, a product to be produced, or a service to be performed.
Opportunity: A risk that would have a positive effect on one or more project objectives. See also issue, risk, and threat.
Optimistic Duration: An estimate of the shortest activity duration that takes into account all of the known variables that could affect performance. See also most likely duration and pessimistic duration.
Organizational Bias: The preferences of an organization on a set of scales characterized by the following core values: exploration versus execution, speed versus stability, quantity versus quality, and flexibility versus predictability.
Organizational Breakdown Structure: A hierarchical representation of the project organization, which illustrates the relationship between project activities and the organizational units that will perform those activities. See also resource breakdown structure, risk breakdown structure, and work breakdown structure (WBS).
Organizational Change Management: A comprehensive, cyclic, and structured approach for transitioning individuals, groups, and organizations from the current state to a future state with intended business benefits.
Organizational Enabler: A structural, cultural, technological, or human-resource practice that the performing organization can use to achieve strategic objectives. See also organizational project management.
Organizational Learning: A discipline concerned with the way individuals, groups, and organizations develop knowledge.
Organizational Process Assets: Plans, processes, policies, procedures, and knowledge bases specific to and used by the performing organization.
Organizational Project Management: A framework in which portfolio, program, and project management are integrated with organizational enablers in order to achieve strategic objectives. See also organizational enabler.
Organizational Project Management Maturity: The level of an organization’s ability to deliver the desired strategic outcomes in a predictable, controllable, and reliable manner.
Overall Project Risk: The effect of uncertainty on the project as a whole, arising from all sources of uncertainty including individual risks, representing the exposure of stakeholders to the implications of variations in project outcome, both positive and negative.
Paint-Drip: See Broken Comb.
Pair Programming: Pair work that is focused on programming.
Pair Work: A technique of pairing two team members to work simultaneously on the same work item.
Pairing: See Pair Work.
Parametric Estimating: An estimating technique in which an algorithm is used to calculate cost or duration based on historical data and project parameters. See also analogous estimating, bottom-up estimating, program evaluation and review technique (PERT), and three-point estimating.
Path Convergence: A relationship in which a schedule activity has more than one predecessor. See also path divergence, predecessor activity, and successor activity.
Path Divergence: A relationship in which a schedule activity has more than one successor. See also path convergence, predecessor activity, and successor activity.
Percent Complete: An estimate expressed as a percent of the amount of work that has been completed on an activity or a work breakdown structure component.
Perform Integrated Change Control: The process of reviewing all change requests; approving changes and managing changes to deliverables, organizational process assets, project documents, and the project management plan; and communicating the decisions.
Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis: The process of prioritizing individual project risks for further analysis or action by assessing their probability of occurrence and impact as well as other characteristics.
Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis: The process of numerically analyzing the combined effect of identified individual project risks and other sources of uncertainty on overall project objectives.
Performance Measurement Baseline: Integrated scope, schedule, and cost baselines used for comparison to manage, measure, and control project execution. See also baseline, cost baseline, schedule baseline, and scope baseline.
Performing Organization: An enterprise whose personnel are the most directly involved in doing the work of the project or program.
Personas: An archetype user representing a set of similar end users described with their goals, motivations, and representative personal characteristics.
Pessimistic Duration: An estimate of the longest activity duration that takes into account all of the known variables that could affect performance. See also most likely duration, and optimistic duration.
Phase Gate: A review at the end of a phase in which a decision is made to continue to the next phase, to continue with modification, or to end a project or program. See also project phase.
Pivot: A planned course correction designed to test a new hypothesis about the product or strategy.
Plan Communications Management: The process of developing an appropriate approach and plan for project communication activities based on the information needs of each stakeholder or group, available organizational assets, and the needs of the project.
Plan Cost Management: The process of defining how the project costs will be estimated, budgeted, managed, monitored, and controlled.
Plan Procurement Management: The process of documenting project procurement decisions, specifying the approach, and identifying potential sellers.
Plan Quality Management: The process of identifying quality requirements and/or standards for the project and its deliverables, and documenting how the project will demonstrate compliance with quality requirements and/or standards.
Plan Resource Management: The process of defining how to estimate, acquire, manage, and utilize physical and team resources.
Plan Risk Management: The process of defining how to conduct risk management activities for a project.
Plan Risk Responses: The process of developing options, selecting strategies, and agreeing on actions to address overall project risk exposure, as well as to treat individual project risks.
Plan Schedule Management: The process of establishing the policies, procedures, and documentation for planning, developing, managing, executing, and controlling the project schedule.
Plan Scope Management: The process of creating a scope management plan that documents how the project and product scope will be defined, validated, and controlled.
Plan Stakeholder Engagement: The process of developing approaches to involve project stakeholders, based on their needs, expectations, interests, and potential impact on the project.
Plan-Do-Check-Act: An iterative management method used in organizations to facilitate the control and continual improvement of processes and products.
Plan-Driven Approach: See Predictive Approach.
Planned Value (PV): The authorized budget assigned to scheduled work. See also actual cost (AC), budget at completion (BAC), earned value (EV), estimate at completion (EAC), and estimate to complete (ETC).
Planning Package: A work breakdown structure component below the control account with known work content but without detailed schedule activities. See also control account.
Planning Process Group: Those processes required to establish the scope of the project, refine the objectives, and define the course of action required to attain the objectives that the project was undertaken to achieve.
Plurality: Decisions made by the largest block in a group, even if a majority is not achieved.
Portfolio: Projects, programs, subsidiary portfolios, and operations managed as a group to achieve strategic objectives. See also program and project.
Portfolio Balancing: The process of optimizing the mix of portfolio components to further the strategic objectives of the organization.
Portfolio Charter: A document issued by a sponsor that authorizes and specifies the portfolio structure and links the portfolio to the organization’s strategic objectives. See also program charter and project charter.
Portfolio Management: The centralized management of one or more portfolios to achieve strategic objectives. See also program management and project management.
Portfolio Management Plan: A document that specifies how a portfolio will be organized, monitored, and controlled. See also program management plan and project management plan.
Portfolio Manager: The person or group assigned by the performing organization to establish, balance, monitor, and control portfolio components in order to achieve strategic business objectives. See also program manager and project manager.
Practice: A specific type of professional or management activity that contributes to the execution of a process and that may employ one or more techniques and tools.
Precedence Diagramming Method: A technique used for constructing a schedule model in which activities are represented by nodes and are graphically linked by one or more logical relationships to show the sequence in which the activities are to be performed. See also node and project schedule network diagram.
Precedence Relationship: A logical dependency used in the precedence diagramming method.
Predecessor Activity: An activity that logically comes before a dependent activity in a schedule. See also successor activity and summary activity.
Predictive Approach: An approach to work management that utilizes a work plan and management of that work plan throughout the life cycle of a project.
Predictive Life Cycle: A more traditional approach, with the bulk of planning occurring up-front, then executing in a single pass; a sequential process.
Preventive Action: An intentional activity that ensures the future performance of the project work is aligned with the project management plan. See also corrective action.
Probability and Impact Matrix: A grid for mapping the probability of occurrence of each risk and its impact on project objectives if that risk occurs. See also risk.
Procurement Audits: The review of contracts and contracting processes for completeness, accuracy, and effectiveness.
Procurement Documentation: All documents used in signing, executing, and closing an agreement. Procurement documentation may include documents predating the project.
Procurement Documents: The documents utilized in bid and proposal activities, which include the buyer’s Invitation for bid, invitation for negotiations, request for information, request for quotation, request for proposal, and seller’s responses.
Procurement Management Plan: A component of the project or program management plan that describes how a team will acquire goods and services from outside of the performing organization. See also project management plan.
Procurement Statement of Work: Describes the procurement item in sufficient detail to allow prospective sellers to determine if they are capable of providing the products, services, or results.
Procurement Strategy: The approach by the buyer to determine the project delivery method and the type of legally binding agreements that should be used to deliver the desired results.
Product Analysis: For projects that have a product as a deliverable, it is a tool to define scope that generally means asking questions about a product and forming answers to describe the use, characteristics, and other relevant aspects of what is going to be manufactured.
Product Backlog: An ordered list of user-centric requirements that a team maintains for a product.
Product Life Cycle: The series of phases that represent the evolution of a product, from concept through delivery, growth, maturity, and to retirement. See also project life cycle.
Product Owner: A person responsible for maximizing the value of the product and who is ultimately responsible and accountable for the end product that is built. See also Service Request Manager.
Product Scope Description: The documented narrative description of the product scope.
Program: Related projects, subsidiary programs, and program activities managed in a coordinated manner to obtain benefits not available from managing them individually.
Program Charter: A document issued by a sponsor that authorizes the program management team to use organizational resources to execute the program and links the program to the organization’s strategic objectives. See also portfolio charter and project charter.
Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT): A technique used to estimate project duration through a weighted average of optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely activity durations when there is uncertainty with the individual activity estimates. See also analogous estimating, bottom-up estimating, parametric estimating, and three-point estimating.
Program Management: The application of knowledge, skills, and principles to a program to achieve the program objectives and to obtain benefits and control not available by managing program components individually. See also portfolio management and project management.
Program Management Office: A management structure that standardizes the program-related governance processes and facilitates the sharing of resources, methodologies, tools, and techniques. See also project management office.
Program Management Plan: A document that integrates the program’s subsidiary plans and establishes the management controls and overall plan for integrating and managing the program’s individual components. See also portfolio management plan and project management plan.
Program Manager: The person authorized by the performing organization to lead the team or teams responsible for achieving program objectives. See also portfolio manager and project manager.
Progressive Elaboration: The iterative process of increasing the level of detail in a project management plan as greater amounts of information and more accurate estimates become available.
Project: A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. See also portfolio and program.
Project Budget: The sum of work package cost estimates, contingency reserve, and management reserve. See also contingency reserve and management reserve.
Project Calendar: A calendar that identifies working days and shifts that are available for scheduled activities.
Project Charter: A document issued by the project initiator or sponsor that formally authorizes the existence of a project and provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities. See also portfolio charter and program charter.
Project Communications Management: Project Communications Management includes the processes required to ensure timely and appropriate planning, collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management, control, monitoring, and ultimate disposition of project information.
Project Cost Management: Project Cost Management includes the processes involved in planning, estimating, budgeting, financing, funding, managing, and controlling costs so the project can be completed within the approved budget.
Project Funding Requirements: Forecast project costs to be paid that are derived from the cost baseline for total or periodic requirements, including projected expenditures plus anticipated liabilities.
Project Initiation: Launching a process that can result in the authorization of a new project.
Project Integration Management: Project Integration Management includes the processes and activities to identify, define, combine, unify, and coordinate the various processes and project management activities within the Project Management Process Groups.
Project Life Cycle: The series of phases that a project passes through from its start to its completion. See also product life cycle.
Project Management: The application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements. See also portfolio management and program management.
Project Management Body of Knowledge: A term that describes the knowledge within the profession of project management. The project management body of knowledge includes proven traditional practices that are widely applied as well as innovative practices that are emerging in the profession.
Project Management Knowledge Area: An identified area of project management defined by its knowledge requirements and described in terms of its component processes, practices, inputs, outputs, tools, and techniques.
Project Management Office: A management structure that standardizes the project-related governance processes and facilitates the sharing of resources, methodologies, tools, and techniques. See also program management office.
Project Management Plan: The document that describes how the project will be executed, monitored and controlled, and closed. See also portfolio management plan, program management plan, communications management plan, cost management plan, resource management plan, and staffing management plan.
Project Management Process Group: A logical grouping of project management inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs. The Project Management Process Groups include initiating processes, planning processes, executing processes, monitoring and controlling processes, and closing processes. Project Management Process Groups are not project phases.
Project Management System: The aggregation of the processes, tools, techniques, methodologies, resources, and procedures to manage a project.
Project Management Team: The members of the project team who are directly involved in project management activities. See also Project Team.
Project Manager: The person assigned by the performing organization to lead the team that is responsible for achieving the project objectives. See also portfolio manager and program manager.
Project Organization Chart: A document that graphically depicts the project team members and their interrelationships for a specific project.
Project Phase: A collection of logically related project activities that culminates in the completion of one or more deliverables. See also phase gate.
Project Procurement Management: Project Procurement Management includes the processes necessary to purchase or acquire products, services, or results needed from outside the project team.
Project Quality Management: Project Quality Management includes the processes for incorporating the organization’s quality policy regarding planning, managing, and controlling project and product quality requirements, in order to meet stakeholders’ expectations.
Project Resource Management: Project Resource Management includes the processes to identify, acquire, and manage the resources needed for the successful completion of the project.
Project Risk Management: Project Risk Management includes the processes of conducting risk management planning, identification, analysis, response planning, response implementation, and monitoring risk on a project.
Project Schedule: An output of a schedule model that presents linked activities with planned dates, durations, milestones, and resources.
Project Schedule Management: Project Schedule Management includes the processes required to manage the timely completion of the project.
Project Schedule Network Diagram: A graphical representation of the logical relationships among the project schedule activities. See also node and precedence diagramming method (PDM).
Project Scope: The work performed to deliver a product, service, or result with the specified features and functions.
Project Scope Management: Project Scope Management includes the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully.
Project Scope Statement: The description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints.
Project Stakeholder Management: Project Stakeholder Management includes the processes required to identify the people, groups, or organizations that could impact or be impacted by the project, to analyze stakeholder expectations and their impact on the project, and to develop appropriate management strategies for effectively engaging stakeholders in project decisions and execution.
Project Team Directory: A documented list of project team members, their project roles, and communication information.
Projectized Organization: An organizational structure in which the project manager has full authority to assign work and apply resources. See also functional organization and matrix organization.
Proposal Evaluation Techniques: The process of reviewing proposals provided by suppliers to support contract award decisions.
Quality: The degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements.
Quality Audits: A quality audit is a structured, independent process to determine if project activities comply with organizational and project policies, processes, and procedures.
Quality Checklists: A structured tool used to verify that a set of required steps has been performed.
Quality Control Measurements: The documented results of control quality activities.
Quality Management Plan: A component of the project or program management plan that describes how an organization’s policies, procedures, and guidelines will be implemented to achieve the quality objectives. See also project management plan.
Quality Management System: The organizational framework whose structure provides the policies, processes, procedures, and resources required to implement the quality management plan. The typical project quality management plan should be compatible to the organization’s quality management system.
Quality Metrics: A description of a project or product attribute and how to measure it.
Quality Policy: A policy specific to the Project Quality Management Knowledge Area, it establishes the basic principles that should govern the organization’s actions as it implements its system for quality management.
Quality Report: A project document that includes quality management issues, recommendations for corrective actions, and a summary of findings from quality control activities and may include recommendations for process, project, and product improvements.
Quality Requirement: A condition or capability that will be used to assess conformance by validating the acceptability of an attribute for the quality of a result.
Questionnaires: Written sets of questions designed to quickly accumulate information from a large number of respondents.
Refactoring: A product quality technique whereby the design of a product is improved by enhancing its maintainability and other desired attributes without altering its expected behavior.
Regression Analysis: An analytical technique where a series of input variables are examined in relation to their corresponding output results in order to develop a mathematical or statistical relationship.
Regulations: Requirements imposed by a governmental body. These requirements can establish product, process, or service characteristics, including applicable administrative provisions that have government-mandated compliance.
Request for Information: A type of procurement document whereby the buyer requests a potential seller to provide various pieces of information related to a product or service or seller capability.
Request for Proposal: A type of procurement document used to request proposals from prospective sellers of products or services. In some application areas, it may have a narrower or more specific meaning.
Request for Quotation: A type of procurement document used to request price quotations from prospective sellers of common or standard products or services. Sometimes used in place of request for proposal and, in some application areas, it may have a narrower or more specific meaning.
Requirement: A condition or capability that is necessary to be present in a product, service, or result to satisfy a business need.
Requirements Documentation: A description of how individual requirements meet the business need for the project.
Requirements Management Plan: A component of the project or program management plan that describes how requirements will be analyzed, documented, and managed. See also project management plan.
Requirements Traceability Matrix: A grid that links product requirements from their origin to the deliverables that satisfy them.
Reserve: A provision in the project management plan to mitigate cost and/or schedule risk. Often used with a modifier e.g., management reserve, contingency reserve to provide further detail on what types of risk are meant to be mitigated.
Reserve Analysis: An analytical technique to determine the essential features and relationships of components in the project management plan to establish a reserve for the schedule duration, budget, estimated cost, or funds for a project.
Residual Risk: The risk that remains after risk responses have been implemented. See also secondary risk.
Resource: A team member or any physical item needed to complete the project.
Resource Breakdown Structure: A hierarchical representation of resources by category and type. See also organizational breakdown structure, risk breakdown structure, and work breakdown structure (WBS).
Resource Calendar: A calendar that identifies the working days and shifts upon which each specific resource is available.
Resource Histogram: A bar chart showing the amount of time that a resource is scheduled to work over a series of time periods.
Resource Leveling: A resource optimization technique in which adjustments are made to the project schedule to optimize the allocation of resources and which may affect critical path. See also resource smoothing and resource optimization technique.
Resource Management Plan: A component of the project management plan that describes how project resources are acquired, allocated, monitored, and controlled. See also project management plan and staffing management plan.
Resource Manager: An individual with management authority over one or more resources.
Resource Optimization Technique: A technique in which activity start and finish dates are adjusted to balance demand for resources with the available supply. See also resource leveling and resource smoothing.
Resource Requirements: The types and quantities of resources required for each activity in a work package.
Resource Smoothing: A resource optimization technique in which free and total float are used without affecting the critical path. See also resource leveling and resource optimization technique.
Responsibility: An assignment that can be delegated within a project management plan such that the assigned resource incurs a duty to perform the requirements of the assignment.
Responsibility Assignment Matrix: A grid that shows the project resources assigned to each work package.
Result: An output from performing project management processes and activities. Results include outcomes e.g., integrated systems, revised process, restructured organization, tests, trained personnel, etc. and documents e.g., policies, plans, studies, procedures, specifications, reports, etc.. See also deliverable.
Retrospective: A regularly occurring workshop in which participants explore their work and results in order to improve both process and product.
Rework: Action taken to bring a defective or nonconforming component into compliance with requirements or specifications.
Risk: An uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on one or more project objectives. See also issue, opportunity, and threat.
Risk Acceptance: A risk response strategy whereby the project team decides to acknowledge the risk and not take any action unless the risk occurs. See also risk avoidance, risk enhancement, risk exploiting, risk mitigation, risk sharing, and risk transference.
Risk Appetite: The degree of uncertainty an organization or individual is willing to accept in anticipation of a reward. See also risk threshold and risk tolerance.
Risk Audit: A type of audit used to consider the effectiveness of the risk management process.
Risk Avoidance: A risk response strategy whereby the project team acts to eliminate the threat or protect the project from its impact. See also risk acceptance, risk enhancement, risk exploiting, risk mitigation, risk sharing, and risk transference.
Risk Breakdown Structure: A hierarchical representation of potential sources of risk. See also organizational breakdown structure, resource breakdown structure, and work breakdown structure (WBS).
Risk Categorization: Organization by sources of risk e.g., using the RBS, the area of the project affected e.g., using the WBS, or other useful category e.g., project phase to determine the areas of the project most exposed to the effects of uncertainty.
Risk Category: A group of potential causes of risk.
Risk Data Quality Assessment: Technique to evaluate the degree to which the data about risks is useful for risk management.
Risk Enhancement: A risk response strategy whereby the project team acts to increase the probability of occurrence or impact of an opportunity. See also risk acceptance, risk avoidance, risk exploiting, risk mitigation, risk sharing, and risk transference.
Risk Exploiting: A risk response strategy whereby the project team acts to ensure that an opportunity occurs. See also risk acceptance, risk avoidance, risk enhancement, risk mitigation, risk sharing, and risk transference.
Risk Exposure: An aggregate measure of the potential impact of all risks at any given point in time in a project, program, or portfolio.
Risk Management Plan: A component of the project, program, or portfolio management plan that describes how risk management activities will be structured and performed. See also project management plan.
Risk Mitigation: A risk response strategy whereby the project team acts to decrease the probability of occurrence or impact of a threat. See also risk acceptance, risk avoidance, risk enhancement, risk exploiting, risk sharing, and risk transference.
Risk Owner: The person responsible for monitoring the risk and for selecting and implementing an appropriate risk response strategy.
Risk Register: A repository in which outputs of risk management processes are recorded.
Risk Report: A project document developed progressively throughout the Project Risk Management processes, which summarizes information on individual project risks and the level of overall project risk.
Risk Review: A meeting to examine and document the effectiveness of risk responses in dealing with overall project risk and with identified individual project risks.
Risk Sharing: A risk response strategy whereby the project team allocates ownership of an opportunity to a third party who is best able to capture the benefit for the project. See also risk acceptance, risk avoidance, risk enhancement, risk exploiting, risk mitigation, and risk transference.
Risk Threshold: The measure of acceptable variation around an objective that reflects the risk appetite of the organization and stakeholders. See also risk appetite and risk tolerance.
Risk Tolerance [deprecated]: The degree of uncertainty that an organization or individual is willing to withstand. See also risk appetite and risk threshold.
Risk Transference: A risk response strategy whereby the project team shifts the impact of a threat to a third party, together with ownership of the response. See also risk acceptance, risk avoidance, risk enhancement, risk exploiting, risk mitigation, and risk sharing.
Role: A defined function to be performed by a project team member, such as testing, filing, inspecting, or coding.
Rolling Wave Planning: An iterative planning technique in which the work to be accomplished in the near term is planned in detail, while the work in the future is planned at a higher level.
S-Curve Analysis: A technique used to indicate performance trends by using a graph that displays cumulative costs over a specific time period.
Scaled Agile Framework: A knowledge base of integrated patterns for enterprise-scale lean–agile development.
Schedule: See project schedule and schedule model.
Schedule Baseline: The approved version of a schedule model that can be changed using formal change control procedures and is used as the basis for comparison to actual results. See also baseline, cost baseline, performance measurement baseline, and scope baseline.
Schedule Compression: A technique used to shorten the schedule duration without reducing the project scope. See also crashing and fast tracking.
Schedule Data: The collection of information for describing and controlling the schedule.
Schedule Forecasts: Estimates or predictions of conditions and events in the project’s future based on information and knowledge available at the time the schedule is calculated.
Schedule Management Plan: A component of the project or program management plan that establishes the criteria and the activities for developing, monitoring, and controlling the schedule. See also project management plan.
Schedule Model: A representation of the plan for executing the project’s activities, including durations, dependencies, and other planning information, used to produce a project schedule along with other scheduling artifacts. See also schedule model analysis.
Schedule Model Analysis: A process used to investigate or analyze the output of the schedule model in order to optimize the schedule. See also schedule model.
Schedule Network Analysis: A technique to identify early and late start dates, as well as early and late finish dates, for the uncompleted portions of project activities. See also early finish date, early start date, late finish date, and late start date.
Schedule Performance Index (SPI): A measure of schedule efficiency expressed as the ratio of earned value to planned value. See also cost performance index (CPI).
Schedule Variance (SV): A measure of schedule performance expressed as the difference between the earned value and the planned value. See also cost variance (CV).
Scheduling Tool: A tool that provides schedule component names, definitions, structural relationships, and formats that support the application of a scheduling method.
Scope: The sum of the products, services, and results to be provided as a project. See also project scope and product scope.
Scope Baseline: The approved version of a scope statement, work breakdown structure (WBS), and its associated WBS dictionary that can be changed using formal change control procedures and is used as the basis for comparison to actual results. See also baseline, cost baseline, performance measurement baseline, and schedule baseline.
Scope Creep: The uncontrolled expansion to product or project scope without adjustments to time, cost, and resources.
Scope Management Plan: A component of the project or program management plan that describes how the scope will be defined, developed, monitored, controlled, and validated. See also project management plan.
Scrum: An agile framework for developing and sustaining complex products, with specific roles, events, and artifacts.
Scrum Board: An information radiator that is utilized to manage the product and sprint backlogs and show the flow of work and its bottlenecks.
Scrum Master: The coach of the development team and process owner in the Scrum framework. Removes obstacles, facilitates productive events and defends the team from disruptions. See also {Flow Master}.
Scrum of Scrums: A technique to operate Scrum at scale for multiple teams working on the same product, coordinating discussions of progress on their interdependencies, and focusing on how to integrate the delivery of software, especially in areas of overlap.
Scrum Team: Describes the combination of development team, scrum master, and process owner used in Scrum.
Scrumban: A management framework that emerges when teams employ Scrum as the chosen way of working and use the Kanban Method as a lens through which to view, understand, and continuously improve how they work.
Secondary Risk: A risk that arises as a direct result of implementing a risk response. See also residual risk.
Self-Organizing Team: A cross-functional team in which people fluidly assume leadership as needed to achieve the team’s objectives.
Self-Organizing Teams: A team formation where the team functions with an absence of centralized control.
Seller: A provider or supplier of products, services, or results to an organization.
Seller Proposals: Formal responses from sellers to a request for proposal or other procurement document specifying the price, commercial terms of sale, and technical specifications or capabilities the seller will do for the requesting organization that, if accepted, would bind the seller to perform the resulting agreement.
Sensitivity Analysis: An analysis technique to determine which individual project risks or other sources of uncertainty have the most potential impact on project outcomes, by correlating variations in project outcomes with variations in elements of a quantitative risk analysis model.
Sequence Activities: The process of identifying and documenting relationships among the project activities.
Servant Leadership: The practice of leading through service to the team, by focusing on understanding and addressing the needs and development of team members in order to enable the highest possible team performance.
Service Level Agreement: A contract between a service provider either internal or external and the end user that defines the level of service expected from the service provider.
Service Request Manager: The person responsible for ordering service requests to maximize value in a continuous flow or Kanban environment. Equivalent to product owner.
Siloed Organization: An organization structured in such a way that it only manages to contribute a subset of the aspects required for delivering value to customers. For contrast, see Value Stream.
Simulation: An analytical technique that models the combined effect of uncertainties to evaluate their potential impact on objectives.
Single Loop Learning: The practice of attempting to solve problems by just using specific predefined methods, without challenging the methods in light of experience.
Smoke Testing: The practice of using a lightweight set of tests to ensure that the most important functions of the system under development work as intended.
Source Selection Criteria: A set of attributes desired by the buyer which a seller is required to meet or exceed to be selected for a contract.
Specification: A precise statement of the needs to be satisfied and the essential characteristics that are required.
Specification by Example: A collaborative approach to defining requirements and business-oriented functional tests for software products based on capturing and illustrating requirements using realistic examples instead of abstract statements.
Specification Limits: The area, on either side of the centerline, or mean, of data plotted on a control chart that meets the customer’s requirements for a product or service. This area may be greater than or less than the area defined by the control limits. See also control limits.
Spike: A short time interval within a project, usually of fixed length, during which a team conducts research or prototypes an aspect of a solution to prove its viability.
Sponsor: An individual or a group that provides resources and support for the project, program, or portfolio, and is accountable for enabling success. See also stakeholder.
Sponsoring Organization: The entity responsible for providing the project’s sponsor and a conduit for project funding or other project resources.
Sprint: Describes a timeboxed iteration in Scrum.
Sprint Backlog: A list of work items identified by the Scrum team to be completed during the Scrum sprint.
Staffing Management Plan: A component of the resource management plan that describes when and how team members will be acquired and how long they will be needed. See also resource management plan.
Stakeholder: An individual, group, or organization that may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project, program, or portfolio. See also sponsor.
Stakeholder Analysis: A technique of systematically gathering and analyzing quantitative and qualitative information to determine whose interests should be taken into account throughout the project.
Stakeholder Engagement Assessment Matrix: A matrix that compares current and desired stakeholder engagement levels.
Stakeholder Engagement Plan: A component of the project or program management plan that identifies the strategies and actions required to promote productive involvement of stakeholders in project or program decision making and execution. See also project management plan.
Stakeholder Register: A project document including the identification, assessment, and classification of project stakeholders.
Standard: A document established by an authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example.
Start Date: A point in time associated with a schedule activity’s start, usually qualified by one of the following: actual, planned, estimated, scheduled, early, late, target, baseline, or current.
Start-to-Finish: A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot finish until a predecessor activity has started. See also finish-to-finish, finish-to-start, start-to-start, and logical relationship.
Start-to-Start: A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot start until a predecessor activity has started. See also finish-to-finish, finish-to-start, start-to-finish, and logical relationship.
Statement of Work: A narrative description of products, services, or results to be delivered by the project.
Statistical Sampling: Choosing part of a population of interest for inspection.
Story Point: A unit-less measure used in relative user story estimation techniques.
Successor Activity: A dependent activity that logically comes after another activity in a schedule. See also predecessor activity and summary activity.
Summary Activity: A group of related schedule activities aggregated and displayed as a single activity. See also predecessor activity and successor activity.
Swarming: A technique in which multiple team members focus collectively on resolving a specific impediment.
T-shaped: Refers to a person with one deep area of specialization and broad ability in the rest of the skills required by the team. See also I-Shaped and Broken Comb.
Tacit Knowledge: Personal knowledge that can be difficult to articulate and share such as beliefs, experience, and insights.
Tailoring: Determining the appropriate combination of processes, inputs, tools, techniques, outputs, and life cycle phases to manage a project.
Team Charter: A document that records the team values, agreements, and operating guidelines, as well as establishing clear expectations regarding acceptable behavior by project team members.
Team Management Plan: A component of the resource management plan that describes when and how team members will be acquired and how long they will be needed.
Technical Debt: The deferred cost of work not done at an earlier point in the product life cycle.
Technique: A defined systematic procedure employed by a human resource to perform an activity to produce a product or result or deliver a service, and that may employ one or more tools.
Term: Short Definition
Test and Evaluation Documents: Project documents that describe the activities used to determine if the product meets the quality objectives stated in the quality management plan.
Test-Driven Development: A technique where tests are defined before work is begun, so that work in progress is validated continuously, enabling work with a zero defect mindset.
Threat: A risk that would have a negative effect on one or more project objectives. See also issue, opportunity, and risk.
Three-Point Estimating: A technique used to estimate cost or duration by applying an average or weighted average of optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely estimates when there is uncertainty with the individual activity estimates. See also analogous estimating, bottom-up estimating, parametric estimating, and program evaluation and review technique (PERT).
Threshold: A predetermined value of a measurable project variable that represents a limit that requires action to be taken if it is reached.
Time and Material Contract: A type of contract that is a hybrid contractual arrangement containing aspects of both cost-reimbursable and fixed-price contracts.
Timebox: A fixed period of time, for example, 1 week, 1 fortnight, 3 weeks, or 1 month. See also Iteration.
To-Complete Performance Index (TCPI): A measure of the cost performance that is achieved with the remaining resources in order to meet a specified management goal, expressed as the ratio of the cost to finish the outstanding work to the remaining budget. See also actual cost (AC), budget at completion (BAC), earned value (EV), and estimate at completion (EAC).
Tolerance: The quantified description of acceptable variation for a quality requirement.
Tool: Something tangible, such as a template or software program, used in performing an activity to produce a product or result.
Tornado Diagram: A special type of bar chart used in sensitivity analysis for comparing the relative importance of the variables.
Total Float: The amount of time that a schedule activity can be delayed or extended from its early start date without delaying the project finish date or violating a schedule constraint. See also free float, critical path, near-critical activity, and near-critical path.
Trend Analysis: An analytical technique that uses mathematical models to forecast future outcomes based on historical results.
Trigger Condition: An event or situation that indicates that a risk is about to occur.
Unanimity: Agreement by everyone in the group on a single course of action.
Update: A modification to any deliverable, project management plan component, or project document that is not under formal change control.
User Story: A brief description of deliverable value for a specific user. It is a promise for a conversation to clarify details.
User Story Mapping: A visual practice for organizing work into a useful model to help understand the sets of high-value features to be created over time, identify omissions in the backlog, and effectively plan releases that deliver value to users.
UX Design: The process of enhancing the user experience by focusing on improving the usability and accessibility to be found in the interaction between the user and the product.
Validate Scope: The process of formalizing acceptance of the completed project deliverables.
Validation: The assurance that a product, service, or result meets the needs of the customer and other identified stakeholders. Contrast with verification.
Value Stream: An organizational construct that focuses on the flow of value to customers through the delivery of specific products or services.
Value Stream Mapping: A lean enterprise technique used to document, analyze, and improve the flow of information or materials required to produce a product or service for a customer.
Variance: A quantifiable deviation, departure, or divergence away from a known baseline or expected value.
Variance Analysis: A technique for determining the cause and degree of difference between the baseline and actual performance. See also cost variance (CV), schedule variance (SV), and variance at completion.
Variance at Completion (VAC): A projection of the amount of budget deficit or surplus, expressed as the difference between the budget at completion and the estimate at completion. See also budget at completion (BAC), cost variance (CV), estimate at completion (EAC), and variance analysis.
Variation: An actual condition that is different from the expected condition that is contained in the baseline plan.
Verification: The evaluation of whether or not a product, service, or result complies with a regulation, requirement, specification, or imposed condition. Contrast with validation.
Verified Deliverables: Completed project deliverables that have been checked and confirmed for correctness through the Control Quality process.
Virtual Teams: Groups of people with a shared goal who fulfill their roles with little or no time spent meeting face to face.
Voice of the Customer: A planning technique used to provide products, services, and results that truly reflect customer requirements by translating those customer requirements into the appropriate technical requirements for each phase of project product development.
WBS Dictionary: A document that provides detailed deliverable, activity, and scheduling information about each component in the work breakdown structure. See also work breakdown structure (WBS).
Weighted Milestone Method: A method of estimating earned value in which the budget value of a work package is divided into measurable segments, each ending with a milestone that is assigned a weighted budget value. See also fixed formula method.
What-If Scenario Analysis: The process of evaluating scenarios in order to predict their effect on project objectives.
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): A hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. See also organizational breakdown structure, resource breakdown structure, risk breakdown structure, and WBS dictionary.
Work Breakdown Structure Component: An entry in the work breakdown structure that can be at any level.
Work Package: The work defined at the lowest level of the work breakdown structure for which cost and duration are estimated and managed.
Work Performance Data: The raw observations and measurements identified during activities being performed to carry out the project work.
Work Performance Information: The performance data collected from controlling processes, analyzed in comparison with project management plan components, project documents, and other work performance information.
Work Performance Reports: The physical or electronic representation of work performance information compiled in project documents, intended to generate decisions, actions, or awareness.
Workaround: An immediate and temporary response to an issue, for which a prior response had not been planned or was not effective. See also risk mitigation.

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Project Management Glossary

Hari Thapliyaal

PM Glossary / Project Management Glossary

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