Glossary
A
Advocate – a champion who lends their social capital or relationship to enable a strategic aim for the project, be that a stakeholder engagement or decision argument leverage for understanding, as examples.
Agile or Scrum sprint – as methodologies generally, these are iterative development that enable fast progress and then the ability to learn from mistakes or outcomes that weren’t expected – ‘failing fast’. Fixed periods of short timescales which can delivery a project output that is later refined as ‘rework’. More focus on quality, than the time and cost to achieve it – there is a willingness to ‘have another go’ to get the output to the level of the success criteria.
Assignee – or ‘owner’ of a task who has the responsibility to complete the work and report to the project lead of any risks or issues.
Assumption – a statement or scenario which the project believes may be true but needs to be confirmed. These are recorded as ‘assumption’ if unconfirmed, or ‘validated’ when substantiated but the appropriate, accountable stakeholder. May be part of a RAID log.
B
Benefit – something which is positive as a result of the delivery of the project output or goal and can be measured. There may be rare occasions where there are unforeseen ‘disbenefits’ that emerge, these are negative impacts which require measurement, monitor and potential mitigations which may be after the project has closed.
Business case – the justification of the project, the ‘why’ of the project. It is the key document to ensure that the project stays on track and true to its purpose. (If deviation, then it is due to change requests that are approved.) The business case must ‘stack up’ at every point of its review. The value of the project work and the outcomes must be worth it.
C
Change – any deviation from an agreed time, cost, quality within documentation or in how the project is working together with stakeholders. They may first appear to be scope creep. Changes are recorded for approval through Change Requests. May be part of a RAID log.
Completion – the end of the project when the outputs have been achieved to agreed scope and quality. There may be a handover of monitoring post project.
Constraint – a limit to the delivery be that time, cost, quality, resource, other control or measure.
Controls – elements of a project which help the project lead and the stakeholders determine if the project is on track. Controls to monitor the health of a project’s progress are time, cost, quality and these sit within key documents like Business case, RAID, project plan, budget plan.
Cost – one of the three important factors for control of projects. Knowing the budgeted or not budgeted cost of specific work or the project as a whole
D
Deliverables – the objectives of the project which are nouns.
Delivery – this is the actual working through and completion of the project plan tasks to achieve the project outputs and outcomes. Delivery can be exchanged with ‘implementation’ or ‘execution’.
Dependency – recording of an objective or activity which is directly reliant on another objective or activity completion, resolution or success. Requires action, allocation to an owner and completion as part of monitoring. Part of a RAID log.
Duration – the length of time for an activity. Found within the project plan. This may be a pure time of the task to be completed (start to finish in 2 hours) or it may the task completed within a window of time (an agreed date). The parameters can be agreed within the project team about how specific these time durations are meant to be.
F
Feedback – the communication of an experience into the project team. This information via stakeholders, users, clients, customers can come via project methodology: agile and scrum sprints (quickly) or from waterfall (slowly). Also can enable lessons learned capture to clarify pros and cons of delivery experience.
G
Governance – the organisation of approvals, accountability, controls as reflected in documentation which enables a robust project environment for successful delivery. Strong governance enables transparency about finances, resources, project outputs, outcomes and benefits – as well as laying the foundation for monitoring that may need to be arranged for post project.
I
Initiation – a project stage at the beginning of the project lifecycle. May be closely run with feasibility studies.
Issue – something which has occurred that has a negative (or rarely positive) impact on the successful outcome of the project. Part of a RAID log.
L
Lesson – a positive or negative learning during the life of the project, it may be unexpected and related to risks or issues and how they are mitigated or resolved. Once recorded, lessons enable future similar projects to be ‘wiser’ in their planning and execution. Lessons are to be shared. May be part of a RAID log.
Lifecycle – the duration or lifespan of a project which may be broken down into stages, tranches, phases of delivery for achieving the project outputs, holistic outcomes, and benefits.
Likelihood – the chance of a risk of issue happening. Scoring is 1-5. (1 low, 5 high). Output is a RAG score when value is multiplied by severity. Can also be called probability. If scoring an issue, the likelihood is the highest score as it HAS occurred.
M
Matrix management – where there is no business line management to delegate work, there is the application of persuasion and motivational delegation to spur someone to take on a task as the assignee.
Milestone – within a project plan and linked to deliverables that have been identified; written as past tense verb phrases. Milestones are made up of tasks. Successful completion of tasks and therefore milestones, will achieve a main objective within the project.
Mitigation – actions to limit the likelihood or chance of a risk happening. Also actions to exert control and limit the continuation of an issue that has occurred (‘turn off the tap’).
N
Needs – can work hand in hand with the requirements. Focusses on the project’s why, why now, what issue are you addressing, who is affected, providing evidence to quantify if possible, providing a ‘what if’ the need isn’t able to be met.
O
Outcomes – sum of the outputs, and the improvements to the project aim expected because of project execution, with quantitative or qualitative value.
Outputs – achieving the deliverables of the project.
P
Parallel – some tasks within a project plan can take place at the same time, or ‘in parallel’. These can be shown as a ‘start start’ with their appropriate other task(s). They have the same start time but may have different time durations.
Plan – the initial or revised (‘rebaseline’) organisation of work, cost or time expenditure.
Project environment – temporary construct where specific people and skill sets come together to achieve a goal for a set time.
Q
Quality – one of the three important factors for control of projects. Agreeing and adhering to ‘what good looks like’ according to the requirements and ensuring project outputs are fit for purpose.
Quorate – the agreed members of the project team or project governance attend a scheduled meeting to make decisions. These decisions would be valid quorate decisions. If a meeting does not have the agreed members present, any decisions made there are not binding, therefore not valid and only assumptions. These would need to be validated with the missing quorum members post meeting. The decisions would then be confirmed as valid.
R
RAG score – R (red) A (amber) G (green) status score for a risk or issue based upon a traffic light. Red indicates high likelihood and severity—STOP and act immediately. Amber indicates a moderate level of likelihood and severity, with one tending to be predominant—PROCEED WITH CAUTION and consider taking appropriate action. Green signifies a low likelihood and severity—REASONABLY SAFE to proceed but monitor the risk going forward to see if any conditions change. Scoring is 1-5. (1 low, 5 high). Part of a RAID log.
Reports – documentation to stakeholders which records and confirms the status of project work, resources and requests decisions, if necessary, based on option appraisal recommendations.
Requirements – what the project and stakeholders require for the project to be successful and may be specified to exactly what good should look like. Part of a RAID log.
Resources – people, finances or items linked to work being undertaken for the project delivery in line with the agreed requirements.
Risk – something which may occur that could have a negative (or rarely positive) impact on the successful outcome of the project. Part of a RAID log.
Roles – membership of the project team or overall governance of a project which has each respective accountability for work or resources or both, for example project lead, Sponsor.
Root cause analysis – when an issue occurs, taking time to specifically examine how the situation came about so that there can be better understanding of immediate mitigation steps, and longer-term lessons learned so it does not occur again.
S
Scope – a specific list that will drive the project activities in the plan, so that objectives and outputs can be achieved, as well as the overall outcomes of the project, which includes the benefits.
Scope creep – when the initial agreed scope feels or appears to be growing or changing in time, cost or quality which has not been approved.
Severity – the impact of a risk or issue happening. Scoring is 1-5. (1 low, 5 high). Output is a RAG score when value is multiplied by likelihood. May also be called impact.
Stage – project methodology section of time where key activities are completed. Generally speaking, could also be called a phase or tranche. Specific names may be Feasibility, Planning, Delivery, Monitoring, Adaptive Management, Closure and Long-Term Stewardship depending on the type of project.
Stakeholders / Stakeholder engagement – all individuals or groups that have a vested interest or involvement in the project. Stakeholder roles are Responsible (R), Accountable (A), Consulted (C), or Informed (I). Stakeholders may have very differing views which require engagement (conversations), understanding, communication and consensus decisions about how to proceed for the project to deliver without disruption. The stakeholder map exercise is to identify where a stakeholder sits currently in interest and (circle of) influence regarding the project outcome. This may need to evolve over the project lifecycle therefore, the project lead or advocates will engage with the stakeholder to ‘move’ them to another part of the map, i.e. more or less interest, more or less influence. All movements have repercussions for the project delivery, engaged/instigated by the project, or outside of project control.
Status – indicate the progress of activities in the project plan i.e. common status categories include New (not started), In progress, Pending Approval, Completed, and Cancelled.
SME / Subject Matter Expert – assignee of a task, a stakeholder, a role within the project governance or project team that has specific technical or specialist knowledge, skill or expertise.
Success criteria – simply put ‘what good looks like’ in very specific terms. Could be called acceptance criteria. Linked to benefits, requirements, business case. The quality criteria for which work and decisions are aiming.
T
Tasks – singular activities within the project plan which together form a milestone, which enables project objectives to be achieved.
Timescale – one of the three important factors for control of projects. Knowing the time allowance for a piece of work, or the project entirely.
W
Waterfall – a project plan which has logically sequenced tasks one after the other, and stages which build upon the previous outputs.