University of Brighton
IT Programme Management Office
Appendix 1
PROJECT MANAGEMENT GLOSSARY
One of the distinguishing features of project working is that it often involves people in several
departments working together, and defining a common terminology will help all parties be confident
that they all share the same understanding of a particular set of words
Term
Description
Assumptions
Those events and circumstances that are expected to occur during the project
life-cycle for successful implementation and completion. During the planning of
the project, the Project Manager will have assumed certain things and these
assumptions should be noted in the PID. Typically assumptions are outside the
total control of the project team.
A fixed reference point that can be used as a comparison. E.G. a signed-off
project plan is a baselined project plan.
Baseline
Benefits
The gains to the business which are achieved by doing the project e.g. the
output of a project could be a new student fees systems, the outcome could be
faster and more accurate fee raising, and the benefit could be that costs are
reduced by 20%, fee disputes are reduced by 50 % and fee debt is reduced by 20
%.
Benefits
Realisation
The practice of ensuring that the outcome of a project produces the projected
benefits claimed in the Business Case. This achievement of the benefits is likely
to continue after the project has finished
Business Case
Information that describes the justification for setting up and continuing a
project. It provides the reasons for the project, and forms part of the Outline
Business Case and is then developed further in the Project Initiation Document.
Communication
Plan
This describes how the project's stakeholders and interested parties will be kept
informed during the project. Will form part of the Project Initiation Document
Critical Path
The Critical Path is the longest path (sequence of activities) in a project schedule
network diagram. Because it is the longest single path, it determines the
duration of the project and hence the finish date of the project (given the start
date).
Customer
Acceptance
Criteria
This document is completed in the Plan It stage and is a written agreement
between the Project Manager and the Senior User on exactly what must be
completed before the users will take the product/service and so close the
project. With a written record of what each party can expect the project to
deliver, there is little chance of confusion later. Without such a record, a project
could produce something quite different from what the user had specified and
was expecting, and the project could result in doing less than what you thought
was originally agreed.
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IT Programme Management Office
Customer
Acceptance Form
This is the second part to the Customer Acceptance Criteria, and is signed off by
the Senior User and Project Manager in the Customer User Acceptance Criteria.
Deliverable
An item that the project has to create as part of the requirements. Another
name for a deliverable is 'product'.
End of Stage
report
A report produced by the Project Manager for the Project Board at the end of a
stage (see Project Plan), indicating whether the project is still on track, does it
still meet the business case?
Exception
A situation where it can be forecast that there will be a deviation beyond the
tolerance levels agreed. This means the project is about to divert from its plan
Exception Report
A report produced by the Project Manager for the Project Board where the
project has started going off track in terms of time, cost or quality. This
describes the exception, provides an analysis and options for the way forward
and identifies a recommended option. Presented to the Project Board for
decision on how to proceed
Gantt Chart
This is a diagram of a plan's activities against a time background, showing start
and end dates and resources required. Small Projects can be managed using
Excel Gantts, with Ms Project usually used by experienced project managers or
for larger projects.
Highlight Report
Progress, issues risks report from the Project Manager to the Project Board on a
time driven basis. Also reports from Project Team members to the PM on their
progress.
Issue Log
A log of all Project Issues including requests for change raised during the project,
showing details of each issue, its evaluation, what decisions about it have been
made and its current status. This will be held in the RAILS log.
Lessons Log
A log of all lessons learnt during the project, recorded for benefit of future
projects e.g. involve operational support teams before delivery to make sure
they are expecting and ready for the changes. The project board should review
these and refer any time critical lessons onwards during the project. They will be
held in the RAILS log. Lessons Learnt will be fed into the Project Closure Report
for future reference..
Milestone
Milestones are critical points or event completions in your project and are used
to monitor progress.
Outline Business
Case
A short description of what the project is to do, used to get initial project
approval. The What, Why, Who, When & How.
Outputs
The things/products/deliverables made by the project e.g. a new student fees
system
Outcomes
The result of the changes introduced by the new system e.g. student fees are
processed more rapidly and accurately
Post Project
A review held as part of the project closure to evaluate how the project went.
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IT Programme Management Office
Review
Inputs to this can be e.g. surveys, questionnaires, meetings involving
stakeholders and the project team. The findings will feed into the Project
Closure Report
PRINCE2
An extensive industry standard project management methodology
Product
An item that the project has to create as part of the requirements. Another
name for a product is ‘deliverable'.
Programme
A group of related projects in order to support specific strategic objectives
Programme
Management
Office
The IT PMO is a new component of an emerging management infrastructure for
strategically funded IT developments at the University to support the
Framework for Information Systems Development. It will play a major role in
managing the strategic IT Programme and in bringing greater coherence and
rigour to the planning, management and control of IT projects in all parts of the
institution.
Project
A temporary activity with a start date, specific goals and conditions, defined
responsibilities, a budget, planning, an end date and multiple parties involved.
Project Board
The Project Board is responsible for the overall direction and management of
the project. As a minimum the Project Board should consist of the Project
Sponsor and the Senior User.
Project Closure
Report
A report from the Project Manager to the Project Board that confirms the
project has finished and been accepted, the hand-over of all products to
operational support, and an evaluation of how the project has done against the
Project Initiation Document. Lessons Learned and the Project Closure Review
will also feed into this report. It will also detail any follow up actions needed
including how the Senior User’s longer term monitoring to ensure that the
intended benefits are achieved will be taking place.
Project Initiation
Document (PID)
A document which brings together the key information needed to start the
project on a sound basis and convey that information to all concerned with the
project. It is developed from the Outline Business Case, and the project and its
business case is fully described, with full risk analysis, how it is to be delivered,
how it is to be planned and managed, and how it is to be accepted.
Project Plan
A schedule of tasks outputs, resource to deliver the project’s products. A
milestone plan (high level) of the major achievements for the project and its
expected stages will be outlined in the PID. A detailed stage plan of individual
tasks should be completed immediately before the stage starts and be approved
by the Project Board. This should help with accuracy of detailed planning.
Typical stages for an IT project might be Requirements Specification, Design,
Develop, Test, Develop Support, Pilot, and Roll-out.
Project
Management
The planning, monitoring and control of all aspects of the project and the
motivation of all those involved in it to achieve the project objectives on time
and to the specified time, cost, and quality.
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Project Sizing
Form
This is a multiple choice form which will help you define the size of your project,
according to its level of risk, priority, budget and strategic importance. Projects
are treated differently according to their size.
Project Team
Project team members will have input into the project plan and are responsible
for delivering products required by the PM to the timescales agreed and for
identifying issues, risks and solutions and to ensure the project’s success. Team
members need to warn the PM of any emerging exceptions and to be pro-active
in devising corrective actions and exception planning.
Project Sponsor
The person with overall responsibility for a project, and achievement of its
expected benefits
Risk/Risk
Management
A risk is the threat or probability that an action or event, will adversely affect a
project's ability to achieve its objectives. Risk management is the identification,
assessment and control of these uncertainties to ensure that they do not occur
or that their impact is minimal.
Senior Supplier
The manager of the functions creating the project’s specialist products – for IT
projects the IT supplier, internal or external or both. They are able to allocate
resource, resolve conflicts, and advise on design, development and acceptance
methods.
Senior User
The manager of the function which will be using the product or service. Projects
are temporary operations that will set up something that will need day to day
running afterwards, and the Senior User is the person who will represent the
business need, giving specialist knowledge and requirements, and provide user
resource to support the project delivery, and for post project operation .
Stakeholders
Parties with an interest in the execution and outcome of a project. They would
include areas/departments affected by or dependant on the outcome of a
project.
Tolerance
The permissible deviation above and below a plan's estimate of time and cost
without escalating the deviation to the next level of management (e.g. is it
running late or is it going over budget. That is, if a project is within tolerance the
Project Manager and the Project Team can keep working and the Project board
need not be involved. The tolerances should be stated at the start of the
project. Separate tolerance figures should be given for time and cost. Tolerance
levels can also be applied for quality, scope, benefit and risk. N.B Tolerances can
only be defined if the project is closely defined with regard to time & cost.
Please forward any suggestions for additional items to this glossary to ITPMO@brighton.ac.uk
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