| These are definitions that are not listed in the PMBOK. You should use the PMBOK for all other standard definitions. - Accounts Payable
Those accounts to which money is owed.
- Accounts Receivable
Those accounts from which money is owed.
- American National Standards Institute
The organization that sets engineering standards for America.
- Closure
This is the project phase in which the organization or people who set up the requirements for the product of the project agree that the project team has delivered the product.
- Deming
The first of the recognized experts in quality and considered by many to be the "Father of the Quality Movement" was Dr. H. Edwards Deming.
- Department of Defense
The DoD was responsible in large part for formalizing project management processes.
- Execution
The phase of the project in which all necessary resources are used to complete the project.
- Feasibility
This is the process of determining the best usage of organizational resources depending on the perceived value of the project.
- Fishbone Diagram
Introduced by Ishikawa, it is called so because of its structure, which resembles the skeleton of a fish.
- Future Value
The value of a current sum at some date in the future.
- Graphic Evaluation and Review Technique
This technique consists of showing various models in graphic form.
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996
This congressional act was enacted to help ensure standards for records keeping and transfer as well as privacy issues.
- Information Technology
This all-encompassing term generally centers around computer hardware and software, although it also is used in conjunction with major communication tools such as the Internet.
- Initiation
The time when someone or some organization specifically authorizes beginning and executing a project.
- Internal Rate of Return
The method that determines the discount rate at which the present value of future cash flows will exactly equal investment outlay.
- International Organization for Standardization
Worldwide federation of national standards bodies from 130 countries and non-governmental groups, promoting the development of standardization and related issues.
- Knowledge Area approach
This is the way the PMBOK is structured. There are nine separate areas of study: Integration, Scope, Cost, Time, Quality, HR, Communications, Risk, and Procurement. Each of the knowledge areas is given a chapter in the PMBOK and explains the facts that PMI thinks are important in the study of the particular topic.
- Lateral communication
The type of communication that occurs between team members and all stakeholders who are peers.
- Leveling Heuristics
Rules of thumb.
- Line management
This is the type of management in which the working person is in one group type, e.g. marketing or operations, and the members within that function report to single superiors who then report to their superiors and so on. It is the classic pyramid of business.
- Management By Walking Around
The concept of managing by making yourself available to your people by actually showing up at their work areas is one that has been shown to help keep relationships in the organization comfortable.
- Mean
The average of all the items in a sample.
- Median
The value selected in a set of data so that roughly half of the data are smaller and roughly half of the data are larger.
- Metric
An operational definition.
- Mode
The most frequently occurring value in the data set.
- Monte Carlo Simulation
An analytical method meant to imitate a real-life system, especially when other analyses are too mathematically complex or too difficult to reproduce. This is done by iterative passes through the information.
- Phase Approach
The phase approach is one way of looking at the organization of a project. It includes the Initiation, Planning, Execution, Control, and Closing phases of a project.
- Plan, Do, Check, Act
Sometimes simply called the PDCA cycle, by which continuous improvement is achieved.
- Planning
The planning phase of a project is the phase where a project manager can utilize guidance from the PMBOK in order to professionally control the overall planning of the project.
- Program Evaluation and Review Technique
This technique is a network model that allows for randomness in activity completion times. PERT was developed in the late 1950s for the U.S. Navy's Polaris project, which had thousands of contractors. It has the potential to reduce both the time and cost required to complete a project.
- Project Management Institute
This is the organizational body that controls the Project Management Certification examination and is the only body recognized by ANSI as the standard in Project Management.
- Project Plan
The actual plan that is the baseline you use to manage and complete the project.
- Quality Assurance
The process of preventing problems rather than correcting them.
- Responsibility to the Profession
This is the first section on the PMI website that deals with the professionalism and ethics of a project manager.
- Responsibilities to Customers and the Public
This is the second section of the PMI website that deals with the professionalism and ethics of a project manager.
- Return on Investment
This is a major form of investment analysis where the amount of return that will occur from an investment on a new project is calculated.
- Risk Monitoring and Control
A continuous process of looking at risks on a project as the project is ongoing.
- Scribe
The person writing down meeting notes for a project status meeting.
- Self Actualization
In the Mazlow pyramid, this is the highest level.
- Six Sigma
A disciplined data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects (driving towards six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any processfrom manufacturing to transactional and from product to service. The number used in six standard deviations is 99.99.
- Statistical Process Control
A type of control that uses sampling methods so that large numbers of outputs can be monitored by using samples without having to look at each unit.
- Technical Review Board
The technical review board consists of experts in a particular technical area and is used to determine whether the project team's performance is in keeping with expected technical limits.
- Three-Point Estimates
Another name for PERT estimates.
- Time and Material
A contract type in which the vendor suggests that the buyer be billed for time and materials as they occur during the project. This puts the risk on the buyer because the final price is variable.
- Version Control
Keeping control of documents and other materials through the use of a numbering system. Any change to a current version creates a new version number.
- Workarounds
Actions done in response to unexpected problems.
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