Industry jargon is real; that's why we have glossaries! And we tried to make this as simple as possible...
Industry jargon is real; that's why we have glossaries! Here, we tried to make it as simple as possible...
What is Acceptance Criteria
Acceptance criteria are specific conditions that have to be met for a product, project or aspects within a project to be considered complete. Acceptance criteria are usually based on the objectives of a project, for example: deliver a working product, meet deadlines, fulfill customer requirements, and so on. The best way to create acceptance criteria is to work closely with customers throughout the duration of a project.
What is Change Management
The term Change management most often describes how we prepare teams and organizations for change. Knowing how to manage teams through small and large-scale organizational change is a fantastic skill for project managers to have; after all, project requirements often change; budgets, timelines, client expectations, resources, hierarchies, team size, strategies and so on.
What is Contingency Plan
A contingency plan is a ‘what if’ scenario, a backup plan developed to prepare for and respond to unexpected events or situations. It involves identifying potential risks, developing strategies to mitigate those risks and outlining the specific steps to be taken. A contingency plan is an important tool that helps people and organizations be prepared for unexpected events while minimizing their impact.
What is Cost Benefit Analysis
Cost-benefit analysis is a method we use to evaluate the potential costs and benefits of a project or decision, by:
- Identifying all the costs (tangible and intangible)
- Identifying all the benefits (tangible and intangible)
- Comparing both to see if benefits outweigh the costs
- If they do, the project or decision is considered to be financially viable.
What is Critical Path Method
A project’s critical path showcases the longest series of tasks (with their dependencies) that must be completed for a project to finish.
What is Definition of Done
The Definition of Done (DoD) is based on the agreed criteria that must be met for a project team to consider an aspect of a project shippable or complete. The DoD establishes a shared understanding across the team of what needs to be done for a user story, feature or product to be considered finished.
What is Earned Value
Earned Value or Budgeted Cost of Work Performed (BCWP) is used to calculate project status.
The EV method uses time and cost to determine whether a project is on schedule, or within budget.
What is Eisenhower Matrix
The Eisenhower Matrix is a productivity tool and framework that helps prioritize tasks based on urgency or importance. It’s a useful framework that helps project managers determine which tasks to prioritize and which to defer or delegate.
What is KPI
KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator - a measurable value that indicates progress towards a project outcome or result.
What is Gantt Chart
The Gantt chart is a visualization of work data over time; the units of work being tasks, or phases and program increments at a higher level.
It is used to support the processes of schedule and dependency management.
What is MVP
MVP is an acronym for Minimum Viable Product which is a concept from Lean Startup which focuses on validating a product idea with customers early in the development lifecycle. An MVP has just enough features to be usable and relies on early adopter feedback to inform ongoing improvements.
What is Net Present Value
Net Present Value (NPV) or Net Present Worth (NPW) is a capital budgeting method that is used as part of a Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) to determine the profitability of an investment. Net Present Value allows project stakeholders to determine if future benefits are more or less than the initial investment.
What are OKRs - Objectives and Key Results
OKRs stands for Objectives and Key Results.
An OKR framework is a structured way to measure progress towards an objective while establishing continuous processes to set higher performance benchmarks for results and motivate the team to achieve them.
What is Opportunity Cost
Opportunity Cost is a concept in economics which quantifies the impact of selecting one option instead of another ‘next best’ alternative. In Project Management, it is applied to quantify the missed opportunity when deciding to use a resource (e.g. investment dollars) for one purpose versus another.
What is Planned Value
Planned value is an approved value of the work, setting up a baseline that lets stakeholders know what the value is, at any point in time, if the project runs on time.
What is Program Manager
A program manager is the one responsible for leading a number of interdependent projects in order to achieve strategic objectives. The Program Manager focuses on realizing overall benefits and achieving organizational goals, as opposed to managing short deadlines and individual deliverables.
What is Project Life Cycle
In order to simplify the management of activities and processes within a project, the latter is broken down into a series of stages or phases, which together form a lifecycle.
Initiation, planning, execution and closure are examples of project phases.
What is Project Governance
Project governance is a function aligned to an organization’s corporate governance framework that oversees critical project management processes across the end lifecycle.
What is Project Management
Project Management can be described as the application of knowledge while using specific processes and tools to manage resources in order to achieve an outcome.
What is Project Portfolio Management
Project Portfolio Management is the organization of multiple projects based on a hierarchical set made of common data attributes.
PPM describes the processes that are managed at every level of the hierarchy.
What is Project Scope
Traditionally, Project Scope can be broadly described as the work, deliverables or the required (working) product features that need to be done in order to complete a project.
Scope Management on the other hand, ensures that only the agreed scope is delivered and controls the addition of new scope.
What is RACI Chart
RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed, each letter representing a level of task responsibility. The Raci chart or responsibility assignment matrix describes the various roles (stakeholders) involved in completing tasks or deliverables for a project.
What is Risk Management
Risk Management in projects is the identification, analysis and treatment of potential impacts to the project based on an assessment of likelihood and consequence.
What is Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a set of integrated principles, workflows, knowledge (or competency areas) and practices that enable organizations to adopt Agile at scale.
What is Scope Creep
Scope Creep is the rather insidious introduction of new requirements or work, incrementally, without governance or risk management.
What is Scrum
Scrum is an agile methodology originally designed as a framework to achieve faster and more efficient product development. The term Scrum was borrowed from Rugby and was specifically used to highlight the emphasis on teamwork in achieving common goals.
What is Statement of Work
A Statement of Work (SoW) is a formal document detailing the agreement between a supplier, or vendor, and the customer.
It includes details about the deliverable, its cost, and the delivery timeline.
What is Sunk Costs
Sunk costs are the expenses incurred to date in a project, which means they’re already spent and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs - such as rent, subscription fees or hardware - are fixed and do not change, irrespective of the levels of productivity of a project or operation.
What is SWOT Analysis
SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
SWOT analysis on the other hand, is a way to evaluate a company or project by assessing these four factors and developing strategies to manage them.
What is Work Breakdown Structure
WBS is a hierarchy comprising four levels; it starts with a project goal that is broken down into objectives, then outputs, and finally, project activities and deliverables.
If you think we should add other PPM glossary terms here, please let us know!