Project Management glossary

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management

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.

Taught in Key concepts in project management