Glossary of key terms in project management

Project term

Description

Business case

A business case provides justification for undertaking a project, programme or portfolio. It evaluates the benefit, cost and risk of alternative options and provides a rationale for the preferred solution.

Change control

Change control is the process through which all requests to change the approved baseline of a project are captured, evaluated and then approved, rejected or deferred.

Milestones

A milestone is a specific point within a project’s life cycle used to measure the progress toward the ultimate goal.

A milestone is a reference point that marks a significant event or a branching decision point within a project.

Objectives

Project objectives are what you plan to achieve by the end of your project. This might include deliverables and assets, or more intangible objectives like increasing productivity or patient satisfaction. Your project objectives should be attainable, time-bound, specific goals you can measure at the end of your project.

Project brief

A project brief is a document (physical or virtual) that outlines the key elements of a project. Your brief is an essential information source both for your team and any project stakeholders.

It contains all the essential project details in clear, concise, and well-structured terms.

Project constraints

Project constraints are limiting factors for your project that can impact quality, delivery, and overall project success.

Project deliverables

Projects create deliverables, which are simply the results of the project or the processes in the project. That means a deliverable can be something as big as the objective of the project itself or the reporting that is part of the larger project.

Another way to put that is that there are inputs and outputs in any type of project. That being what you put into the project, such as data, resources, etc., and then what comes out, which are the deliverables. Those deliverables can be a product or service.

Project lifecycle

The project life cycle is a way of describing the life of a project. It describes the high-level process of delivering a project and the steps you take to make things happen. It’s how projects happen; how the phases of a project conduct a team from brief through to delivery. Every project has a start and end; it’s born, matures, and then “dies” when the project life cycle is complete.

Project management

Project management can be defined as the discipline of applying specific processes and principles to initiate, plan, execute and manage the way that new initiatives or changes are implemented within an organisation.

Project management is different to management of business as usual activity, which is an ongoing process, as it involves creating new work packages to achieve agreed ends or goals.

Project scope

Project scope is a way to set boundaries on your project and define exactly what goals, deadlines, and project deliverables you'll be working towards. By clarifying your project scope, you can ensure you hit your project goals and objectives without delay or overwork.

Project sponsor

The project sponsor is the person responsible for the overall success of the project, including appointing the project manager and team, defining success criteria, and ensuring the successful delivery of the project.

Project steering group

A Project Steering Group is the oversight committee of a project.  Its role is to provide advice, ensure delivery of the project outputs and the achievement of project outcomes.

Projects

A project is a temporary venture that exists to produce a defined outcome. Each project will have agreed and unique objectives as well as its own project plan, budget, timescale, deliverables and tasks. A project may also involve people from different teams within an organisation who are brought together to accomplish a specific goal.

Risk log

A risk register, sometimes known as a risk log, is an important component of the overall risk management framework. Created during the early stages of a project, the risk register is a tool that helps track issues and address them as they arise.

Scope creep

Scope creep is what happens when changes are made to the project scope without any control procedure like change requests. Those changes also affect the project schedule, budget, costs, resource allocation and might compromise the completion of milestones and goals. Scope creep is one of the most common project management risks.

Generally, scope creep occurs when new project requirements are added by project clients or other stakeholders after the project execution has started. Often these changes are not properly reviewed. Therefore, the project team is expected to complete more tasks, deliverables and milestones with the same resources and in the same time as the original scope.

Stakeholders

A stakeholder is an individual, group or organisation that is impacted by the outcome of a project. Project stakeholders, as the name implies, have an interest in the success of a project, and can be internal or external to the organisation that is sponsoring the project.

Tasks

A task is an activity that needs to be accomplished within a defined period of time or by a deadline to work towards work-related goals. It is a small essential piece of a job that serves as a means to differentiate various components of a project.