Support Services > Project Management Office
Glossary
| Active Projects | An approved project that is in progress or scheduled to begin immediately. |
| Assess Projects | A completed project that is awaiting customer sign-off, lessons learned, business value analysis or other end-of-project documentation. |
| Assumption [Output/Input] | Factor that is considered to be true, real, or certain and is often used as a basis for decision making. |
| Bar Chart [Tool] | Graphical display of schedule-related information. In the typical bar chart, schedule activities or work breakdown structure components are listed down the left side of the chart, dates are shown across the top, and activity durations are shown as date-placed horizontal bars. Also called a Gantt chart. |
| Baseline | 1) Original plan (for a project, work package, or
activity), plus or minus any approved change. 2) Nominal plan to which deviations will be compared. |
| Benchmarking | Comparing project practices to those of similar projects to provide a standard by which to measure performance. |
| Benchmark | Measured point of reference used to make comparisons. |
| Benefit | Gain to be accrued from the successful completion of a project. Benefits are compared to costs to ensure the selection of the most advantageous project or the most effective approach to complete a project. |
| Brainstorming [Technique] | Problem-solving technique that can be used for planning purposes, risk identification, improvement efforts, and other project-related endeavors. Participants are invited to share their ideas in a group setting, where no disapproving verbal or nonverbal behaviors are permitted. The technique is designed to generate a large number of ideas by helping people to think creatively and allowing hem to participate fully, without feeling inhibited or criticized by others. |
| Breakdown | Identification o the smallest activities or tasks in a project for estimating, monitoring, and controlling purposes. |
| Budge at Completion (BAC) | The sum of all budgets established for the work to be performed on the project. The total planned value for the project. |
| Budget Estimate | Estimate of the funds needed to obtain project approval, which includes a combination of fixed and unit prices for labor, material, equipment, and other direct and indirect costs. |
| Capital | In finance, money and any other property of an organization used in transacting its business. |
| Capital Expenditure | Money paid for improvements that will have a life of more than 1 year. |
| Capital assets | Physical property of an organization that generally has long, useful life such as equipment, vehicles, or buildings. |
| Champion | (1) Person who spearheads an idea or action and
promotes it throughout the organization. (2) Person with significant influence who takes personal responsibility (although usually not for day-to-day management) for the successful completion of a project for the organization. |
| Change | (1) Increase or decrease in any project
characteristics--time, costs, or technical requirements. (2) Deviation from agreed-upon specifications definition, functionality, or plans; alternate approach to project work accomplishments. (3) Alteration in a contract as permitted by a contract clause. |
| Change Control | Identifying, documenting, approving or rejecting, and controlling changes to the project baseline. |
| Change Control Board (CCB) | A formally constituted group of stakeholders responsible for reviewing, evaluating, approving, delaying, or rejecting changes to the project, with all decisions and recommendations being recorded. |
| Change Control System [Tool] | A collection of formal documented procedures that define how project deliverables and documentation will be controlled, changed, and approved. In most application areas the change control system is a subset of the configuration management system. |
| Change Request | Requests to expand or reduce the project scope, modify policies, processes, plans, or procedures, modify costs or budgets, or revise schedules. |
| Charter | See Project Charter. |
| Checklist [Output/Input] | Items listed together for convenience of comparison, or to ensure the actions associated with them are managed appropriately and not forgotten. An example is a list of items to be inspected that is created during quality planning and applied during quality control. |
| Close Project [Process] | The process of finalizing all activities across all of the project process groups to formally close the project or phase. |
| Closed Projects | A completed project that has met all of the criteria in the assess project life cycle. |
| Communication Plan [Output/Input] | The document that describes: the communication needs and expectations for the project; how and in what format information will be communicated; when and where each communication will be made; and who is responsible for providing each type of communication. |
| Consortium | Similar to a joint venture, a group of companies formed to undertake a project beyond the resources of any one member. |
| Constraint [Input] | The state, quality, or sense of being restricted to a given course of action or inaction. An applicable restriction or limitation, either internal or external to the project, that will affect the performance of the project or a process. For example, a schedule constraint is any limitation or restraint placed on the project schedule that affects when a schedule activity can be schedule and is usually in the form of fixed imposed dates. A cost constraint is any limitation or restraint placed on the project budget such as funds available over time. A project resource constraint is any limitation or restraint placed on resource usage, such as what resource skills or disciplines are available and the amount of a given resource available during a specified time frame. |
| Contingency | 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. |
| Contingency Reserve [Output/Input] | The amount of funds, budget, or time needed above the estimate to reduce the risk of overruns of project objectives to a level acceptable to the organization. |
| Contract Statement of Work (SOW) [Output/Input] | A narrative description of products, services, or results to be supplied under contract. |
| Critical Path [Output/Input] | The sequence of schedule activities that determines the duration of the project. Generally, it is the longest path through the project. |
| Customer | 1) The person or organization that will use the
project's product or service or result. 2) The individual or group that has requested, that is the recipient or who is paying for the deliverables). This could be an internal department, someone in management, an external organization, and so on. |
| Deferred Requests | A draft request or submitted request that is determined to be handled through Remedy (not a project) |
| Deliverable [Output/Input] | 1) Any unique and verifiable product, result, or
capability to perform a service that must be produced to complete a
process, phase, or project. 2) Any measurable, tangible, verifiable outcome, result, or item that must be produced to complete a project or part of a project. |
| Dependencies | Dependencies are relationships in which a desired state is contingent upon the achievement of one or more prerequisites. |
| Early Finish Date (EF) | In the critical path method, the earliest possible point in time on which the uncompleted portions of a schedule activity (or the project) can finish, based on the schedule network logic, the data date, and any schedule constraints. Early finish dates can change as the project progresses and as changes are made to the project management plan. |
| Early Start Date (ES) | In the critical path method, the earliest possible point in time on which the uncompleted portions of a schedule activity (or the project) can start, based on the schedule network logic, the data date, and any schedule constraints. Early start dates can change as the project progresses and as changes are made to the project management plan. |
| Effort | The number of labor units required to complete a schedule or work breakdown structure component. Usually expressed as staff hours, staff days, or staff weeks. Contrast with duration. |
| Enterprise Applications (Project) | An application that's used by multiple departments and/or has interfaces with another enterprise system in support of campus-wide services) |
| Enterprise Customer Service (Project) | A project that requires a large amount of marketing or communication to the customer |
| Enterprise Customer Service (Project) | Supports customer delivery to the Enterprise. (Student Wireless, Student Help Desk, Enterprise Portal). |
| Enterprise Infrastructure (Project) | A project that provides a hidden or invisible service to support essential business operations. |
| Escalated Projects | A project that has been assessed and determined to be incomplete due to lack of customer sign-off, customer issues/concerns, scope changes, etc. |
| Estimate at Completion (EAC) [Output/Input] | The expected total cost of completing project work. EAC is equal to the actual cost (AC) plus the estimate to complete (ETC) for all of the remaining work. |
| Estimate Projects | A service request that has been approved to begin the project life cycle. Projects are investigated in this phase (previously "Investigating"). |
| Estimate to Complete (ETC) [Output/Input] | 1) The expected cost needed to complete all
the remaining work for a schedule activity, work breakdown structure
component, or the project. 2) The estimated cost of completing the remaining work. |
| Fast Tracking | A specific project schedule compression technique that changes network logic to overlap phases that would normally be done in sequence, such as the design phase and construction phase, or to perform schedule activities in parallel. |
| Feasibility Study | Examination of technical and cost data to determine the economic potential and practicality of project applications. Involves the use of techniques such as the time value of money so that projects may be evaluated and compared on an equivalent basis. Interest rates, present value factors, capitalization costs, operating costs, and depreciation are all considered. |
| Finish Date | A point in time associated with a schedule activity's completion. Usually qualified by one of the following: actual, planned, estimated, schedule, early, late baseline, target, or current. |
| Finish-to-Finish (FF) | The logical relationship where completion of work of the successor activity cannot finish until the completion of work of the predecessor activity. |
| Finish-to-Start (FS) | The logical relationship where initiation of work of the successor activity depends upon the completion of work of the predecessor activity. |
| Float | Amount of time that an activity can be delayed from its early start without delaying the project end date. Derived by subtracting the early start from the late start or early finish from the late finish, and may change as the project progresses and as changes are made to the project plan. Also called slack, total float, and path float. |
| Flowchart [Tool] | Diagram consisting of symbols depicting a physical process, a thought process, or an algorithm. shows how the various elements of a system or process relate and which can be used for continuous process improvement. |
| Forecasts | Estimates or predictions of conditions and events in the project's future based on information and knowledge available at the time of the forecast. Forecasts are updated and reissued based on work performance information provided as the project is executed. The information is based on the project's past performance and expected future performance, and includes information that could impact the project in the future, such as estimate at completion and estimate to complete. |
| Gantt Chart | See bar chart. Named after its developer, Henry Gantt. |
| Ground Rules [Tool] | A list of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors adopted by a project team to improve working relationships, effectiveness, and communication. |
| Human Resource Planning [Process] | The process of identifying and documenting project roles, responsibilities and reporting relationships, as well as creating the staffing management plan. |
| Invitation for Bid (IFB) | This term is generally equivalent to request for proposal (RFP). |
| Initiating Processes [Process Group] | Those processes performed to authorize and define the scope of a new phase or project or that can result in the continuation of halted project work. |
| Instructional (Project) | A project that directly impacts and/or supports the delivery of instruction. |
| Issue | 1) A point or matter in question or in dispute, or a
point or matter that is not settled and is under discussion or over
which there are opposite views or disagreements. 2) Formally identified item related to a project that, if not addressed, may --
Distinguished from a risk in that it is an extant problem, whereas a risk is a future even. In many organizations, the terms are used interchangeably. |
| Lag [Technique] | A modification of a logical relationship that directs a delay in the successor activity. For example, in a finish-to-start dependency with a ten-day lag, the successor activity cannot start until ten days after the predecessor activity has finished. |
| Late Finish Date (LF) | Latest possible point in time that an activity may end without a delay in the project finish date. |
| Late State Date (LS) | Latest possible point in time that an activity may begin without delaying the project finish date. |
| Lessons Learned [Output/Input] | The learning gained from the process of performing the project. Lessons learned may be identified at any point. Also considered a project record, to be included in the lessons learned knowledge base. |
| Lessons Learned Knowledge Base | A store of historical information and lessons learned about both the outcomes of previous project selection decisions and previous project performance. |
| Methodology | A system of practices, techniques, procedures, and rules used by those who work in a discipline. |
| Milestone | A significant point or event in the project. |
| On Hold Projects | An active project that has been suspended. |
| Opportunity | A condition or situation favorable to the project, a positive set of circumstances, a positive set of events, a risk that will have a positive impact on project objectives, or a possibility of positive changes. Contrast with threat. |
| Organization Chart [Tool] | A method for depicting interrelationships among a group of persons working together toward a common objective. |
| Organization Breakdown Structure (OBS) [Tool] | A hierarchically organized depiction of the project organization arranged so as to relate the work packages to the performing organizational units. |
| Output [Process Output] | A product, result, or service generated by a process. May be an input to a successor process. |
| Patient / Clinical | Supports delivery of services to patients and/or patients receive the primary benefit from the project. |
| Patient / Clinical | Supports direct patient encounter or clinical service. (Examples: SOD Practice Management System, OSA Service Migration) |
| Pending Projects | A project that has been approved to start at a future date. |
| Performing Organization | The enterprise whose personnel are most directly involved in doing the work of the project. |
| Portfolio | A collection of projects or programs and other work that are grouped together to facilitate effective management of that work to meet strategic business objectives. |
| Portfolio Management [Technique] | The centralized management of one or more portfolios, which includes identifying, prioritizing, authorizing, managing, and controlling projects, programs, and other related work, to achieve specific strategic business objectives. |
| Procedure | A series of steps followed in a regular definitive order to accomplish something. |
| Proceed with Project | A project that has complete documentation and is prepared to be presented in the Directors/Managers meeting for approval. |
| Process | A set of interrelated actions and activities performed to achieve a specified set of products, results, or services. |
| Program | A group of related projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits and control not available from managing them individually. Programs may include elements of related work outside of the scope of the discrete projects in the program. |
| Program Management Office (PMO) | The centralized management of a particular program or programs such that corporate benefit is realized by the sharing of resources, methodologies, tools, and techniques, and related high-level project management focus. |
| Project | A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service. Temporary means that a project has a definite beginning and a definite end. Unique mean that the product or service is different in some distinguishing way from all similar products or services. |
| Project Calendar | A calendar of working days or shifts that establishes those dates on which schedule activities are worked and nonworking days that determine those dates on which schedule activities are idle. Typically defines holidays, weekends, and shift hours. |
| Project Charter [Input/Output] | 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. |
| Project Management Office (PMO) | An organizational body or entity assigned various responsibilities to the centralized and coordinated management of those projects under its domain. The responsibilities of a PMO can range from providing project management support functions to actually being responsible for the direct management of a project. |
| Project Management Plan [Output/Input] | A formal, approved document that defines how the project is executed, monitored and controlled. It may be summary or detailed and may be composed of one or more subsidiary management plans and other planning documents. |
| Project Management Professional (PMP) | A person certified as a PMP by the Project Management Institute (PMI). |
| Project Management Software [Tool] | Computer software that is specifically designed to aid the project management team with planning, monitoring, and controlling the project, including: cost estimating, scheduling, communications, collaboration, configuration management, document control, records management, and risk analysis. |
| Project Manager (PM) | The person assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project objectives. |
| Project Organization Chart [Output/Input] | A document that graphically depicts the project team members and their interrelationships for a specific project. |
| Project Performance | A measure of the extent to which the project is carried out as planned in terms of objectives, time, and financial constraints, and organizational policies and procedures. |
| Project Phase | Collection of logically related project activities, usually resulting in the completion of a major deliverable. Collectively, the project phases compose the project life cycle. |
| Project Schedule [Output/Input] | The planning dates for performing schedule activities and the planned dates for meeting schedule milestones. |
| Project Scope | The work that must be performed to deliver a product, service, or result within the specified features and functions. |
| Project Success | A collective assessment by project stakeholders (e.g., client/customer, sponsor) of the degree to which the project has achieved each of its objectives. |
| Project Team | All the project team members, including the project management team, the project manager, and for some projects, the project sponsor. |
| Project Team Members | The persons who report either directly or indirectly to the project manager, and who are responsible for performing project work as a regular part of their assigned duties. |
| Project Team Directory | A documented list of project team members, their project roles and communication information. |
| Punch List | The items remaining to be completed after a final inspection. |
| Rejected Requests | A service request that has been determined not to be performed. |
| Request for Information (RFI) | 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 (RFP) | A type of procurement document used to request proposals from prospective sellers of products or services. |
| Request for Quotation (RFQ) | 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. |
| Requested Change [Output/Input] | A formally documented change request that is submitted for approval to the integrated change control process. |
| Requirement | A condition or capability that must be met or possessed by a system, product, service, result, or component to satisfy a contract, standard, specification, or other formally imposed documents. Requirements include the quantified and documented needs, wants, and expectations of the sponsor, customer, and other stakeholders. |
| Research (Project) | Provides direct support to research activities. (Examples: Fitkid, Southern Light Rail, HAC) |
| Reserve | See contingency. |
| Resource | Skilled human resources (specific disciplines either individually or in crews or teams), equipment, services, supplies, commodities, material, budgets, or funds. |
| Resource Leveling [Technique] | Any form of schedule network analysis in which scheduling decisions (start and finish dates) are driven by resource constraints (e.g., limited resource availability or difficult-to-manage changes in resource availability levels). |
| Rework | Action taken to bring a defective or nonconforming component into compliance with requirements or specifications. |
| Risk | The possibility an event may occur that will positively (opportunity) or negatively affect the project. |
| Risk Acceptance [Technique] | a risk response planning technique that indicates that the project team has decided not to change the project management plan to deal with a risk, or is unable to identify any other suitable response strategy. |
| Risk Avoidance [Technique] | A risk response planning technique for a threat that creates changes to the project management plan that are meant to either eliminate the risk or to protect the project objectives from its impact. Generally, risk avoidance involves relaxing the time, cost, scope, or quality objectives. |
| Risk Mitigation [Technique] | A risk response planning technique associated with threats that seeks to reduce the probability of occurrence or impact of a risk to below an acceptance threshold. |
| Risk Monitoring and control [Process] | The process of tracking identified risks, monitoring residual risks, identifying new risk, executing risk response plans, and evaluating their effectiveness throughout the project life cycle. |
| Role | a defined function to be performed by a project team member, such as testing, filing, inspecting, or coding. |
| Root Cause Analysis [Technique] | An analytical technique used to determine the basic underling reason that causes a variance or a defect or a risk. A root cause may underlie more than one variance or defect for risk. |
| Scope Creep | Adding features and functionality (project scope) without addressing the effects on time, costs, and resources, or without customer approval. |
| Service Requests | The menu system for inputting a request/project into vPMI |
| Sole Source | A type of procurement where only one supplier is asked to bid. Often required to obtain proprietary products. |
| Sponsor | The person or group that provides the financial resources, in cash or in kind, for the project. |
| Stakeholder | Persons and organizations such as customers, sponsors, performing organization and the public, that are actively involved in the project, or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected by execution or completion of the project. They may also exert influence over the project and its deliverables. |
| Standard | A document established by consensus and approved by a recognized body that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context. |
| Submitted Requests | The starting point of any initiated project request. |
| Subproject | A smaller portion of the overall project created when a project is subdivided into more manageable components or pieces. Subprojects are usually represented in the work breakdown structure. A subproject can be referred to as a project, managed as a project, and acquired from a seller. |
| Template | A partially complete document in a predefined format that provides a defined structure for collecting, organizing and presenting information and data. Templates are often based upon documents created during prior projects. Templates can reduce the effort needed to perform work and increase the consistency of results. |
| Template Projects | A closed project that has been determined to be a suitable model for future projects. |
| Threat | A condition or situation unfavorable to the project, a negative set of circumstances, a negative set of events, a risk that will have a negative impact on a project objective if it occurs, or a possibility for negative changes. Contrast with opportunity. |
| Triggers | Indications that a risk has occurred or is about to occur. Triggers may be discovered in the risk identification process and watched in the risk monitoring and control process. Triggers are sometimes called risk symptoms or warning signs. |
| Triple Constraint | A relationship between product scope, time, and cost. If a change is made to any of the three factors, at least one other factor must change. |
| User | The person or organization that will use the project's product or service. |
REFERENCES:
Combined Standards Glossary, 2d Ed, Newtown Square, Pa.: Project Management Institute, 2005
Project Management Terms, A working Glossary, Arlington, Va.: ESI International, 2000
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide). 3rd ed. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute, 2004.
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