A record of the task dates, duration, effort and costs, as originally scheduled.
Change management
The process by which a Project Plan is modified in the course of the project.
Critical path
A series of tasks , each of which must be completed on time to meet fixed task dates and/or the end date of the overall project.
Deadline
When a job must be complete by.
Deliverable
Something made, written, produced or created as a result of a job.
Dependency
A timing relationship between two tasks that determines the necessary sequence of events.
Detail task
A task that does not have any indented tasks beneath it.
Effort
How much work is in a job.
Elapsed time
How long a job will take.
Estimating
Guessing. Trying to predict the future. Doing this based on some previous knowledge or experience.
Filters
Filters are used to reduce the amount of data being displayed from the database. A filter acts on the data stream coming from the database. It does not touch the data in the database.
Gantt
Chart displaying the tasks on the project as bars on a timescale .
Goal
Think of the project as a journey; the goal is your destination. Every individual working on a project, the project manager and the project sponsor must be able to succinctly state the goal of the project. Only then will everyone be working in tandem. Also, there should be only one goal.
Job
Same as project or phase or activity or task.
Milestone
The date of a significant event, normally created as a task with zero duration.
Objective
Think of the project as a journey; an objective is one of the points you have to pass on the way to your destination. To put it another way, each job has an objective.
PERT
Project evaluation and review technique. Flow chart of tasks that shows dependencies.
PERT Chart
A network whose nodes represent project jobs and their durations, and whose links represent relationships between pairs of jobs.
Phase, Activity, Task
These are all terms used to describe subcomponents into which a project can be broken down. In some organizations, these have specific meanings and relationships to one another. To avoid any conflict here, we use the term job as being synonymous with any of these three terms.
Predecessor
The earlier task in a dependency relationship between two tasks.
Project
Any endeavor can be considered as a project. In our terminology project and job are synonymous.
(Project) budget
The cost of all or part of a project.
Project control
Trying to keep what actually happens on a project in line with the Project Plan.
(Project) costing
Working out what a project will cost.
Project manager
Every project should have one and only one project manger who owns the project. This person is responsible for the project and will get the kudos when the project succeeds or will have her head chopped off when the project fails. On large projects there may be a number of project managers, each with responsibility for a certain part of the project. Each project manger should be able to identify the boundaries of his project and the success factors associated with it.
Project monitoring
Checking how a project is proceeding against the Project Plan.
Project Plan
Your prediction of how you think the project will evolve . It is also the formal agreement between:
the members of the team
the team and the project leader
the project team and its customer.
Describes all aspects of the project identified during the planning process.
Reports
Reports are used primarily during the implementation stage of a project. They allow the user to calculate totals and to cross-tabulate between tasks and resources.
Resource
The people, equipment and supplies used to complete tasks in a project.
Resource allocation
Assigning people (or other resources) to jobs.
Resource pool
This is the total of all resources in a project. The resource pool for a project can be maintained with the project or can be maintained in a separate project and thus shared by a number of projects.
Risk analysis
Trying to predict what might go wrong on a project and allowing yourself some room for maneuver.
Slack
The amount of time a task can be delayed without delaying a fixed task or the end date of the overall project.
Success factors
What is the definition of a successful project?
Within agreed timescale
To agreed budget
Supplies required functionality
Supplies required quality
Successor
The later task in a dependency relationship between two tasks.
Summary task
A task that is a synopsis of tasks indented beneath it in the outline structure. Also known as an outline task.
Task
An activity that has a defined start and end, and produces a definable result.
Variable cost
A cost defined as a price per unit of time.
WBS
Work breakdown structure. A hierarchical organization of tasks using specific codes.
