12 MORE Terms You Should Know | Project Management Fundamentals

Following on from our successful project management key terms video, we’ve created a brand new fundamentals video of more key project management terms we think you should know. These are a bit more advanced but you'll hear them used regularly in any project environment.

Check out our original 12 terms you should know video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTQsdJFG4SQ

Acceptance criteria:

In simplest terms this is a list of things that the product must do to be acceptable to the customer. They’re defined during the business case and must be formally agreed between the supplier and customer. It’s normal to get them signed off by both parties. A really basic example is “the cake must be edible.”

Baseline:

A baseline is a line in the sand showing where a project, schedule, budget etc. was at a specific point in time. Things can, and do, change after baselining but you have the baselined version to measure change against. I think that everything should be baselined only once, regardless of change but others think that you can baseline multiple times, as long as all baselines are kept for reference.

Benefits:

The advantage or positive change that will happen if the project succeeds. Projected project benefits are outlined in the business case and are used to justify the investment in the project.

Change control:

Change control is not to be confused with change management, although you’ll often find that’s the case. Change control is exactly what it says – how you control changes on your project. As a process it covers everything from project scope to time and everything in between.

Critical path:

Critical path or golden thread is the line that connects the start of the project through all the tasks, that if delayed or cancelled, would delay the entire project.

Interdependencies:

Interdependencies are pieces work, either inside or outside of the project, that will impact on the delivery of your project or someone else’s. It sounds really complicated but here’s an example. You and your friend are making cakes but there’s only one oven. Your friend’s cake is due to finish baking 10 minutes before yours needs to go in the oven. You have a dependency on your friend as you can’t use the oven until he’s finished. If he’s late getting his cake in, yours will also be late.

Project sponsor:

The project sponsor, or, as they’re also known as – the project executive is the person who is ultimately accountable for the project’s success, or failure. They’re usually someone very senior and their job is to make sure the project does what it says it will do.

Project Scope:

This is something you’ll hear a lot about. Especially in the initial stages – and when people want to change things! An easy way to remember it is that in scope is a list of things the project WILL do. Out of scope is a list of things the project WON’T do. Scope creep is when things get sneaked onto the WILL do list.

Quality assurance:

This is the process used on the project to make sure the products it delivers meets the required standard. It’s documented in the business case and it will be checked throughout the project. It’s sometimes called quality control – but that’s a slightly different thing. I remember it by quality assurance is the process of ensuring quality, while quality control is checking that the product meets the quality standard. So testing is quality control, not quality assurance.

Stage gate:

A stage gate, or phase gate is a boundary in the project. It’s where a project transitions from one stage, or phase to another. Gate, or phase reviews normally happen at each gate and it’s where the steering committee decide the fate of the project. Usually the decision’s one of: can it move on, should it stay where it is or should it be cancelled. The number of gates depends on your organisation’s lifecycle.

Tolerances:

Tolerances are agreed limits that the project manager can operate within. What it means is that you don’t have to continually go back to your sponsor or steering committee to approve every little thing, as long as it remains within the limit. Some example tolerances are budget: +/- 10%, schedule: either a percentage or a fixed period of time. So +/- 15% or 30 days, depending what is smaller. Risks: no more than 10 risks above medium.

Work package:

A work package is a formal document that the project manager gives the owner of a piece of work. It outlines exactly what is in and out of scope, how long the work should take, the expected outputs and the acceptance criteria.

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Видео 12 MORE Terms You Should Know | Project Management Fundamentals канала Psoda