Project Management cheat sheet

Key terms

Project

A temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. Temporary means it has a definite beginning and end, not that it is short; unique means the deliverable differs from what has been produced before, even if only in some respects.

Operations

Ongoing, repetitive work producing the same output continuously. A project creates the capability; operations run it. Building a bottling line is a project; bottling is an operation.

Programme

A group of related projects, subsidiary programmes and programme activities managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits not available from managing them individually. The coordination is the point: a programme exists where the projects interact.

Portfolio

Projects, programmes, subsidiary portfolios and operations managed as a group to achieve strategic objectives. The components need not be related to each other; what unites them is that they compete for the same resources and serve the same strategy.

Project management

The application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.

The distinction in practice

Project management asks whether this project is being done right; programme management asks whether the projects together deliver the benefit; portfolio management asks whether these are the right projects to be doing at all.

Project life cycle

The series of phases a project passes through from start to completion. The phases provide the framework for managing it, and they differ by industry and by approach.

Generic phases

Starting the project, organising and preparing, carrying out the work, and closing the project. Cost and staffing are low at the start, peak during the work, and fall rapidly at the close.

Predictive (waterfall) life cycle

Scope, time and cost are determined early and change is controlled against a baseline. Appropriate where the requirement is well understood and the deliverable is well defined: a building, a road, a plant installation.

Iterative life cycle

The scope is determined early but time and cost estimates are refined as understanding grows, and the product is developed through repeated cycles that add function.

Incremental life cycle

The deliverable is produced through a series of increments, each adding functionality, with a usable deliverable available after each.

Adaptive (agile) life cycle

Iterative and incremental, with scope elaborated at the start of each short iteration. Appropriate where the requirement is uncertain, changes rapidly, or can only be discovered by building and showing something.

Hybrid

Combining approaches, commonly predictive for the elements that are well defined, such as procurement and construction, and adaptive for those that are not, such as software or process design.

Phase gate

A review at the end of a phase at which continuation, change or termination is decided, which is the same discipline as the stage gate described in Innovation and Knowledge Management, under managing innovation.

Enterprise environmental factors (EEFs)

Conditions not under the immediate control of the project team that influence, constrain or direct the project. They are inputs to almost every process and they cannot be changed by the project.

Internal EEFs

Organisational culture, structure and governance; geographic distribution of facilities; infrastructure; information technology software; resource availability; and employee capability.

External EEFs

Marketplace conditions; social and cultural influences; legal restrictions; commercial databases; academic research; government or industry standards; financial considerations such as exchange rates, inflation and interest rates; and physical environmental elements.

Organisational process assets (OPAs)

The complement to EEFs, and frequently confused with them in examination answers. OPAs are the plans, processes, policies, procedures and knowledge bases specific to and used by the organisation: templates, historical information and lessons-learned repositories. Unlike EEFs, they are within the organisation's control and are updated by projects.

Why the distinction is examined

EEFs constrain what the project can do and OPAs help it do it. A project that treats an OPA as fixed loses the ability to improve it, and one that treats an EEF as changeable wastes effort trying.