PM Glossary

Project management glossary

217 project management, agile, risk, cost and business analysis terms explained in plain English, each with a real-world example.

A

• Acceptance Criteria: The conditions that must be met before a deliverable or user story is accepted.
• Activity: A distinct, scheduled portion of work performed during a project.
• Actual Cost (AC): The actual cost incurred for the work performed during a given period.
• ADKAR: A change model describing what individuals need to change: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement.
• Agile: A mindset and set of practices for delivering value in small increments, with frequent feedback, collaboration and the ability to respond to change.
• Agile Manifesto: The 2001 statement of four values and twelve principles for agile software development, such as valuing individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
• Analogous Estimating: Estimating duration or cost using values from a similar past project.
• As-Is and To-Be: Describing the current state of a process or system (as-is) and the desired future state (to-be), to identify the changes needed.
• Assumption: A factor considered true, real or certain without proof, used for planning.

B

• Backlog Refinement: The ongoing activity of adding detail, estimates and order to product backlog items so they are ready for future sprints.
• Baseline: The approved version of a plan (scope, schedule or cost) used as the basis for comparison.
• Benefits Realization: Making sure the outcomes and benefits promised in the business case are actually achieved, often after the project ends.
• Benefits Register: A record of planned benefits, their measures, owners and timing.
• Bottom-Up Estimating: Estimating each work package or activity in detail and adding them up.
• BPMN: Business Process Model and Notation: a standard graphical notation for business process diagrams.
• Budget at Completion (BAC): The sum of all budgets established for the work to be performed; the total planned budget.
• Burndown Chart: A chart that shows the work remaining over time in a sprint or release.
• Burnup Chart: A chart that shows work completed over time against total scope, making scope changes visible.
• Business Analysis: The practice of enabling change by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.
• Business Analyst: A person who identifies business needs, elicits and manages requirements and helps define solutions.
• Business Case: A documented economic feasibility study that justifies a project by comparing its expected benefits with its costs and risks.
• Business Requirements: High-level statements of the goals or needs of the organization.

C

• Change Control: The process of reviewing all change requests, assessing their impact, and approving or rejecting them before baselines are updated.
• Change Control Board (CCB): A formally constituted group responsible for reviewing, evaluating and approving, deferring or rejecting changes to the project.
• Change Request: A formal proposal to modify a document, deliverable or baseline.
• Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct: PMI's standard for ethical behaviour, built on four values: responsibility, respect, fairness and honesty.
• Colocation: Placing team members in the same physical location to improve communication and collaboration.
• Communication Channels: The number of possible communication paths in a team: n(n − 1) ÷ 2, where n is the number of people.
• Communications Management Plan: The plan that defines what information is shared, with whom, when, how and by whom.
• Conflict Management: Handling disagreements constructively.
• Constraint: A limiting factor that affects how a project is performed, such as a fixed budget, deadline, resource or regulation.
• Context Diagram: A top-level diagram that shows a system as one process and its interactions with external entities.
• Contingency Reserve: Budget or time set aside for identified risks (known unknowns).
• Continuous Improvement: Ongoing effort to improve products, services or processes in small steps, such as Kaizen or Plan-Do-Check-Act.
• Contract Types: The main contract families are fixed price (seller carries cost risk), cost-reimbursable (buyer carries cost risk) and time and materials (a hybrid, used for staff augmentation).
• Control Chart: A chart that shows whether a process is stable over time, with a mean and upper and lower control limits.
• Control Quality: Monitoring and recording the results of quality activities to check that deliverables are correct and meet requirements.
• Cost Baseline: The approved, time-phased budget, excluding management reserve, used to measure cost performance.
• Cost of Quality (COQ): The total cost of quality-related efforts: prevention and appraisal (cost of conformance) plus internal and external failures (cost of non-conformance).
• Cost Performance Index (CPI): A measure of cost efficiency: CPI = EV ÷ AC.
• Cost Variance (CV): The difference between earned value and actual cost: CV = EV − AC.
• Cost-Reimbursable Contract: A contract where the buyer pays the seller's actual costs plus a fee.
• Crashing: Shortening the schedule by adding resources to critical path activities, usually at extra cost.
• Critical Path: The longest sequence of activities through the network.
• Critical Path Method (CPM): A method that calculates early and late start and finish dates for each activity to find the critical path and float.
• Cycle Time: The time an item takes from when work starts to when it is finished.

D

• Daily Scrum: A 15-minute daily event for developers to inspect progress toward the sprint goal and adapt their plan.
• Dashboard: A visual display of key metrics and KPIs on one screen, used to monitor performance and support decisions.
• Data Flow Diagram (DFD): A diagram that shows how data moves between processes, data stores and external entities.
• Decision Tree: A diagram that compares options by mapping decisions, chance events, probabilities and outcomes, and calculating the EMV of each path.
• Decomposition: Dividing project scope and deliverables into smaller, more manageable parts.
• Defect: An imperfection or deficiency in a deliverable that does not meet its requirements or specifications.
• Definition of Done (DoD): A shared, formal description of the quality an increment must meet before it is considered done.
• Definition of Ready (DoR): Criteria a backlog item should meet before the team starts it, such as clear acceptance criteria and an estimate.
• Dependency: A logical relationship between activities.

E

• Earned Value (EV): The value of the work actually completed, expressed in terms of its approved budget.
• Earned Value Management (EVM): A method that integrates scope, schedule and cost to measure project performance and forecast results, using planned value, earned value and actual cost.
• Elicitation: Drawing out information from stakeholders and other sources, using techniques such as interviews, workshops, observation and surveys.
• Emotional Intelligence: The ability to recognize and manage your own emotions and those of others, which supports leadership and team performance.
• Enterprise Environmental Factors (EEF): Conditions not under the team's immediate control that influence or constrain the project, such as regulations, market conditions, culture and infrastructure.
• Epic: A large body of work that can be broken down into smaller user stories.
• Escalation: Raising an issue to a higher level of authority when it cannot be resolved at the current level.
• Estimate at Completion (EAC): The expected total cost of completing all work.
• Estimate to Complete (ETC): The expected cost to finish the remaining work: ETC = EAC − AC.
• Expected Monetary Value (EMV): The probability of a risk multiplied by its impact in money.

F

• Fast Tracking: Shortening the schedule by doing activities in parallel that were planned in sequence.
• Fishbone Diagram: A cause-and-effect (Ishikawa) diagram that groups possible causes of a problem into categories such as people, process and tools.
• Five Whys: Asking 'why?' repeatedly, usually about five times, to move from a symptom to its root cause.
• Fixed-Price Contract: A contract with a set total price for a defined product or service.
• Float (Slack): The amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the project end date (total float) or the next activity (free float).
• Functional Requirement: A description of what a solution must do: its behaviours, features and functions.

G

• Gantt Chart: A bar chart of schedule information: activities on the vertical axis, dates on the horizontal axis and bars for durations.
• Gap Analysis: Comparing the current state with the desired future state to identify what must change.
• Gold Plating: Adding extra features or quality that the customer did not ask for, usually by the team.
• Governance: The framework of roles, decision rights, processes and controls that guides how projects are approved, overseen and kept aligned with organizational goals.
• Grade: A category assigned to products with the same use but different features.
• Ground Rules: Expectations agreed by the team about acceptable behaviour, often part of the team charter.

H

• Hybrid Approach: A combination of predictive and adaptive elements, chosen to fit different parts of the project.

I

• Impediment: Anything that blocks or slows the team's progress.
• Increment: A usable step toward the product goal that meets the Definition of Done.
• Information Radiator: A large, visible display of key project information, such as a task board or burndown chart, that anyone can see.
• Internal Rate of Return (IRR): The discount rate at which a project's NPV equals zero.
• INVEST: A checklist for good user stories: Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small and Testable.
• Issue: A current condition or situation that is affecting the project and needs to be resolved.
• Issue Log: A document where issues are recorded and tracked with owners, actions and due dates until resolved.

J

• Joint Application Design (JAD): A structured workshop where business users and IT design a system together.

K

• Kanban: A method for managing flow by visualizing work on a board, limiting work in progress and improving continuously.
• Key Performance Indicator (KPI): A measurable value that shows how well an objective is being achieved.
• Kickoff Meeting: A meeting at the start of a project, or a phase, to align the team and stakeholders on objectives, roles and the plan.

L

• Lead and Lag: Lead is time a successor can start before its predecessor finishes; lag is a required delay between them.
• Lead Time: The total time from when a request is made to when it is delivered.
• Lean: An approach focused on maximizing customer value while minimizing waste, based on the Toyota Production System.
• Lessons Learned: Knowledge gained during a project that shows how events were addressed, or should be addressed in future, to improve performance.

M

• Make-or-Buy Analysis: Deciding whether to build something in-house or buy it from a supplier, based on cost, capability, risk and strategy.
• Manage Quality: Turning the quality management plan into executable quality activities and improving processes, sometimes called quality assurance.
• Management Reserve: Budget held back for unidentified risks (unknown unknowns).
• Milestone: A significant point or event in a project, with zero duration.
• Minimum Viable Product (MVP): The smallest version of a product that can be released to learn whether it meets user needs.
• Monte Carlo Simulation: A technique that runs a model thousands of times with random values within estimated ranges to show the probability of different outcomes.
• MoSCoW Prioritization: Grouping requirements into Must have, Should have, Could have and Won't have (this time).
• Motivation Theory: Theories that explain what drives people at work, such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Herzberg's two-factor theory and McGregor's Theory X and Y.

N

• Net Present Value (NPV): The value today of future cash flows minus the initial investment, using a discount rate.
• Network Diagram: A graphical representation of the logical relationships among project activities.
• Non-Functional Requirement: A quality or condition a solution must have, such as performance, security, availability or usability.

O

• Operations: Ongoing, repetitive work that keeps an organization running, such as processing payroll or answering support calls.
• Opportunity: A risk with a positive effect on project objectives.
• Opportunity Cost: The value of the best alternative given up when choosing one option.
• Organizational Change Management: The structured approach to helping people adopt a change, through communication, training, sponsorship and reinforcement.
• Organizational Process Assets (OPA): Plans, processes, policies, templates and knowledge bases specific to and used by the performing organization, such as historical data and lessons learned.
• Outcome: The end result or consequence of a process or project, such as a change in behaviour or performance, which leads to benefits.

P

• Parametric Estimating: Estimating by using a statistical relationship between historical data and variables, such as cost per square metre or hours per test case.
• Pareto Chart: A bar chart sorted from most to least frequent, used to focus on the few causes behind most problems (the 80/20 rule).
• Payback Period: The time needed for cumulative benefits to recover the initial investment.
• Performance Measurement Baseline: The integrated scope, schedule and cost baselines used to measure and compare project performance, especially in earned value management.
• PERT: Program Evaluation and Review Technique: a three-point estimating method using optimistic, most likely and pessimistic values, weighted (O + 4M + P) ÷ 6.
• Phase Gate: A review at the end of a phase where a decision is made to continue to the next phase, continue with modification, or stop the project.
• Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA): A four-step improvement cycle: plan a change, do it on a small scale, check the results and act to standardize or adjust.
• Planned Value (PV): The authorized budget assigned to the work scheduled to be done by a given date.
• Planning Poker: A consensus estimating technique in which team members reveal estimate cards at the same time and discuss differences.
• PMO: A Project Management Office standardizes project governance and shares resources, methods, tools and techniques.
• Portfolio: A collection of projects, programs and operations managed together to achieve strategic objectives.
• Power/Interest Grid: A 2×2 grid that groups stakeholders by their power and interest to decide how to engage them: manage closely, keep satisfied, keep informed or monitor.
• Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM): A technique for drawing network diagrams in which activities are boxes (nodes) linked by dependencies such as finish-to-start.
• Predictive Approach: An approach where scope, schedule and cost are planned in detail early, and change is managed through formal change control.
• Probability and Impact Matrix: A grid used to rate risks by combining their probability of occurring with their impact, to prioritize them.
• Process Map: A diagram that shows the steps, decisions and roles in a business process, often in swimlanes.
• Procurement: Obtaining products, services or results from outside the project team.
• Product Backlog: An ordered list of everything that might be needed in the product.
• Product Owner: The Scrum role accountable for maximizing the value of the product, mainly by managing and ordering the product backlog.
• Program: A group of related projects and activities managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits that would not be available by managing them separately.
• Progressive Elaboration: Continuously improving and detailing the plan as more specific information and better estimates become available.
• Project: A temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.
• Project Charter: A document issued by the sponsor that formally authorizes the project and gives the project manager authority to use organizational resources.
• Project Closure: The process of finalizing all activities, transferring the product, releasing resources, closing contracts and archiving project information.
• Project Life Cycle: The series of phases a project passes through from start to completion.
• Project Management Plan: The document that describes how the project will be executed, monitored, controlled and closed.
• Project Manager: The person assigned by the performing organization to lead the team responsible for achieving the project objectives.
• Push Communication: Information sent to specific recipients, such as emails or reports.

Q

• Qualitative Risk Analysis: Prioritizing risks by assessing their probability and impact, usually on a scale, without detailed numbers.
• Quality: The degree to which a set of characteristics fulfils requirements.
• Quantitative Risk Analysis: Numerically analysing the combined effect of risks on project objectives, using techniques such as EMV, decision trees and Monte Carlo simulation.

R

• RACI Matrix: A responsibility assignment matrix that shows who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed for each task or deliverable.
• RAG Status: A red, amber or green indicator that summarizes the health of a project or area against agreed thresholds.
• RAID Log: A log that tracks Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies (or Decisions) in one place.
• Request for Proposal (RFP): A document asking potential sellers to propose solutions, used when the buyer needs ideas or complex services.
• Requirements: Conditions or capabilities that a product, service or result must have to meet a business need.
• Requirements Traceability Matrix: A grid that links each requirement to its business need, design, tests and deliverables, so every requirement is delivered and tested.
• Requirements Workshop: A facilitated session that brings key stakeholders together to define requirements quickly and resolve differences.
• Residual Risk: The risk that remains after a response has been implemented.
• Resource Histogram: A bar chart showing the amount of a resource needed or scheduled over time, used to spot over-allocation.
• Resource Leveling: Adjusting start and finish dates to balance resource demand with supply.
• Resource Smoothing: Adjusting activities so resource needs stay within limits without changing the critical path, using only available float.
• Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM): A grid that shows the project resources assigned to each work package.
• Retrospective: The event at the end of an iteration where the team inspects how it worked and agrees improvements.
• Return on Investment (ROI): The net benefit of an investment as a percentage of its cost: (total benefits − cost) ÷ cost.
• Risk: An uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on one or more project objectives.
• Risk Appetite: The degree of uncertainty an organization is willing to accept in anticipation of a reward.
• Risk Owner: The person responsible for monitoring a risk and carrying out its response plan.
• Risk Register: A document listing identified risks with their causes, probability, impact, owners, triggers and planned responses.
• Risk Response Strategies: Ways to respond to risks.
• Rolling Wave Planning: Planning near-term work in detail while keeping future work at a higher level, refined as more is known.
• Root Cause Analysis: A technique for finding the underlying cause of a problem rather than its symptoms, often with the 5 Whys or a fishbone diagram.

S

• Salience Model: A stakeholder classification by power, urgency and legitimacy.
• Scaled Agile: Frameworks for applying agile across many teams, such as SAFe, LeSS and Disciplined Agile.
• Schedule Baseline: The approved version of the schedule model, used to measure schedule performance.
• Schedule Performance Index (SPI): A measure of schedule efficiency: SPI = EV ÷ PV.
• Schedule Variance (SV): The difference between earned value and planned value: SV = EV − PV.
• Scope: The sum of the products, services and results to be provided by a project.
• Scope Baseline: The approved scope statement, work breakdown structure and WBS dictionary, used to compare actual scope against plan.
• Scope Creep: The uncontrolled expansion of scope without adjustments to time, cost and resources.
• Scope Statement: A description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, constraints and exclusions.
• Scrum: An agile framework in which a small team delivers value in fixed-length sprints, with three accountabilities (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Developers), five events and three artifacts.
• Scrum Master: The Scrum role accountable for the team's effectiveness: coaching Scrum, removing impediments and serving the team and organization.
• Servant Leadership: A leadership style focused on serving the team: removing impediments, coaching and enabling people to do their best work.
• Service Level Agreement (SLA): An agreement that defines the expected level of service, such as response times and availability, often with penalties.
• Source Selection Criteria: The criteria used to rate and select seller proposals, such as technical approach, experience, price and risk.
• Spike: A time-boxed piece of research or experiment to reduce uncertainty before estimating or building.
• Sponsor: The person or group who provides resources and support for the project and is accountable for enabling its success, including the business case and benefits.
• Sprint: A fixed time-box, usually one to four weeks, in which a Scrum team creates a usable increment.
• Sprint Backlog: The sprint goal, the backlog items selected for the sprint and the plan for delivering them.
• Sprint Goal: A single objective for the sprint that gives the team focus and flexibility in the work they complete.
• Sprint Planning: The Scrum event that starts a sprint, where the team agrees the sprint goal and selects backlog items to deliver.
• Sprint Review: The Scrum event near the end of a sprint where the team shows what it built to stakeholders and adapts the product backlog based on feedback.
• Stakeholder: An individual, group or organization that may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a project.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Working with stakeholders to meet their needs, address issues and encourage appropriate involvement throughout the project.
• Stakeholder Engagement Assessment Matrix: A matrix comparing each stakeholder's current and desired engagement level: unaware, resistant, neutral, supportive or leading.
• Stakeholder Register: A document that identifies stakeholders and records their role, interests, influence, expectations and engagement level.
• Standard Deviation: A measure of how spread out values are around the average.
• Statement of Work (SOW): A narrative description of the products, services or results to be delivered by a supplier.
• Status Report: A regular report on project progress, usually covering schedule, cost, risks, issues and next steps, often with RAG status.
• Steering Committee: A group of senior stakeholders who give direction, make key decisions and resolve escalated issues for a project or program.
• Story Points: A relative measure of the effort, complexity and uncertainty of a backlog item, often on a Fibonacci-like scale.
• Sunk Cost: Money already spent that cannot be recovered.
• SWOT Analysis: A strategic analysis of internal Strengths and Weaknesses and external Opportunities and Threats.

T

• Tailoring: Deliberately adapting the project approach, governance and processes to suit the project's context, size and complexity.
• Team Charter: A document that records the team's values, agreements and operating guidelines, such as communication norms and decision making.
• Three-Point Estimate: An estimate based on optimistic, most likely and pessimistic values to reflect uncertainty.
• Timeboxing: Setting a fixed maximum time for an activity, such as a sprint or meeting.
• To-Complete Performance Index (TCPI): The cost performance needed on the remaining work to meet a target: TCPI = (BAC − EV) ÷ (BAC − AC).
• Transition Plan: The plan for handing over the project's product to operations or the customer, including training, support and documentation.
• Trigger: An event or condition that indicates a risk is about to occur or has occurred.
• Triple Constraint: The idea that scope, time and cost are linked, so changing one affects the others, with quality in the middle.
• Tuckman Ladder: A model of team development stages: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.

U

• Use Case: A description of how an actor interacts with a system to achieve a goal, including the main flow and alternative flows.
• User Acceptance Testing (UAT): Testing by business users to confirm a solution meets their needs before it goes live.
• User Story: A short description of a feature from the user's point of view, often written: As a [role], I want [goal] so that [benefit].

V

• Validate Scope: The process of formally accepting completed deliverables with the customer or sponsor.
• Value: The worth, importance or usefulness of something to stakeholders.
• Value Stream Mapping: A lean technique that maps every step needed to deliver a product, to find delays and waste.
• Variance at Completion (VAC): The projected budget surplus or deficit at the end: VAC = BAC − EAC.
• Velocity: The amount of work, usually in story points, a team completes in a sprint.
• Virtual Team: A team that works together with little or no face-to-face time, relying on online tools.

W

• WBS Dictionary: A document that gives detailed information about each component of the WBS, such as description, owner, acceptance criteria and estimates.
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): A hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work into smaller, manageable deliverables called work packages.
• Work in Progress (WIP) Limit: A cap on the number of items allowed in a workflow stage at one time, to reduce multitasking and improve flow.
• Work Package: The lowest level of the WBS, where cost and duration can be estimated and managed.
• Workaround: An unplanned response to a risk that has occurred, usually an issue that was not identified or planned for.

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