Pmbok 5, Ch 5 - Definitions

Front 1

Acceptance Criteria

Back 1

A set of conditions that is required to be met before deliverables are accepted.

Front 2

Accepted Deliverables

Back 2

Products, results, or capabilities produced by a project and validated by the project customer or sponsors as meeting their specified acceptance criteria.

Front 3

Affinity Diagram

Back 3

A group creativity technique that allows large numbers of ideas to be classified into groups for review and analysis.

Front 4

Alternatives Generation

Back 4

A technique used to develop as many potential options as possible in order to identify different approaches to execute and perform the work of the project.

Front 5

Assumption

Back 5

A factor in the planning process that is considered to be true, real, or certain, without proof or demonstration.

Front 6

Benchmarking

Back 6

The comparison of actual or planned practices; such as processes and operations, to those of comparable organizations to identify best practices, generate ideas for improvement, and provide a basis for measuring performance.

Front 7

Brainstorming

Back 7

A general data gathering and creativity technique that can be used to identify risks, ideas, or solutions to issues by using a group of team members or subject matter experts.

Front 8

Change Request

Back 8

A formal proposal to modify any document, deliverable, or baseline.

Front 9

Code of Accounts

Back 9

A numbering system used to uniquely identify each component of the work breakdown structure (WBS).

Front 10

Collect Requirements

Back 10

The process of determining, documenting, and managing stakeholder needs and requirements to meet project objectives.

Front 11

Constraint

Back 11

A limiting factor that affects the execution of a project, program, portfolio, or process.

Front 12

Context Diagrams

Back 12

A visual depiction of the product scope showing a business system (process, equipment, computer system, etc.), and how people and other systems (actors) interact with it.

Front 13

Control Account

Back 13

A management control point where scope, budget, actual cost, and schedule are integrated and compared to earned value for performance measurement.

Front 14

Control Scope

Back 14

The process of monitoring the status of the project and product scope and managing changes to the scope baseline.

Front 15

Create WBS

Back 15

The process of subdividing project deliverables and project work into smaller, more manageable components.

Front 16

Control Scope

Back 16

The process of monitoring the status of the project and product scope and managing changes to the scope baseline.

Front 17

Create WBS

Back 17

The process of subdividing project deliverables and project work into smaller, more manageable components.

Front 18

Decomposition

Back 18

A technique used for dividing and subdividing the project scope and project deliverables into smaller, more manageable parts.

Front 19

Define Scope

Back 19

The process of developing a detailed description of the project and product.

Front 20

Deliverable

Back 20

Any unique and verifiable product, result, or capability to perform a service that is required to be produced to complete a process, phase, or project.

Front 21

Dictatorship

Back 21

A group decision-making technique in which one individual makes the decision for the group.

Front 22

Document Analysis

Back 22

An elicitation technique that analyzes existing documentation and identifies information relevant to the requirements.

Front 23

Earned Value (EV)

Back 23

The measure of work performed expressed in terms of the budget authorized for that work.

Front 24

Enterprise Environmental Factors

Back 24

Conditions, not under the immediate control of the team, that influence, constrain, or direct the project, program, or portfolio.

Front 25

Expert Judgment

Back 25

Judgment provided based upon expertise in an application area, knowledge area, discipline, industry, etc., as appropriate for the activity being performed. Such expertise may be provided by any group or person with specialized education, knowledge, skill, experience, or training.

Front 26

Facilitated Workshops

Back 26

An elicitation technique using focused sessions that bring key cross-functional stakeholders together to define product requirements.

Front 27

Focus Groups

Back 27

An elicitation technique that brings together prequalified stakeholders and subject matter experts to learn about their expectations and attitudes about a proposed product, service, or result.

Front 28

Gantt Chart

Back 28

A bar chart of schedule information where activities are listed on the vertical axis, dates are shown on the horizontal axis, and activity durations are shown as horizontal bars placed according to start and finish dates.

Front 29

Group Creativity Techniques

Back 29

Techniques that are used to generate ideas within a group of stakeholders.

Front 30

Group Decision-Making Techniques

Back 30

Techniques to assess multiple alternatives that will be used to generate, classify, and prioritize product requirements.

Front 31

Idea/Mind Mapping

Back 31

Technique used to consolidate ideas created through individual brainstorming sessions into a single map to reflect commonality and differences in understanding and to generate new ideas.

Front 32

Inspection

Back 32

Examining or measuring to verify whether an activity, component, product, result, or service conforms to specified requirements.

Front 33

Interviews

Back 33

A formal or informal approach to elicit information from stakeholders by talking to them directly.

Front 34

Majority

Back 34

Support from more than 50 percent of the members of the group.

Front 35

Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

Back 35

This technique utilizes a decision matrix to provide a systematic analytical approach for establishing criteria, such as risk levels, uncertainty, and valuation, to evaluate and rank many ideas.

Front 36

Nominal Group Technique

Back 36

A technique that enhances brainstorming with a voting process used to rank the most useful ideas for further brainstorming or for prioritization.

Front 37

Observations

Back 37

A technique that provides a direct way of viewing individuals in their environment performing their jobs or tasks and carrying out processes.

Front 38

Plan Scope Management

Back 38

The process of creating a scope management plan that documents how the project scope will be defined, validated, and controlled.

Front 39

Planning Package

Back 39

A work breakdown structure component below the control account with known work content but without detailed schedule activities. Related term: Control Account.

Front 40

Plurality

Back 40

Decisions made by the largest block in a group, even if a majority is not achieved.

Front 41

Product

Back 41

An artifact that is produced, is quantifiable, and can be either an end item in itself or a component item. It might also be referred to as materials, goods, or deliverable. Related term: Deliverable.

Front 42

Product Analysis

Back 42

For projects that have a product as a deliverable, it is a tool to define scope that generally means asking questions about a product and forming answers to describe the use, characteristics, and other the relevant aspects of what is going to be manufactured.

Front 43

Product Scope

Back 43

The features and functions that characterize a product, service, or result.

Front 44

Product Scope Description

Back 44

The documented narrative description of the product scope.

Front 45

Progressive Elaboration

Back 45

The iterative process of increasing the level of detail in a project management plan as greater amounts of information and more accurate estimates become available.

Front 46

Project Scope

Back 46

The work performed to deliver a product, service, or result with the specified features and functions.

Front 47

Project Scope Management

Back 47

Project Scope Management includes the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully.

Front 48

Project Scope Statement

Back 48

The description of the project scope, acceptance criteria, major deliverables, exclusions, assumptions, and constraints.

Front 49

Prototypes

Back 49

A method of obtaining early feedback on requirements by providing a working model of the expected product before actually building it.

Front 50

Questionnaires and Surveys

Back 50

Written sets of questions designed to quickly accumulate information from a large number of respondents.

Front 51

Regulation

Back 51

Requirements imposed by a governmental body. These requirements can establish product, process, or service characteristics, including applicable administrative provisions that have government-mandated compliance.

Front 52

Requirement

Back 52

A condition or capability that is required to be present in a product, service, or result to satisfy a contract or other formally imposed specification.

Front 53

Requirements Documentation

Back 53

A description of how individual requirements meet the business need for the project.

Front 54

Requirements Management Plan

Back 54

A component of the project or program management plan that describes how requirements will be analyzed, documented, and managed.

Front 55

Requirements Traceability Matrix

Back 55

A grid that links product requirements from their origin to the deliverables that satisfy them.

Front 56

Result

Back 56

An output from performing project management processes and activities. Results include outcomes (e.g., integrated systems, revised process, restructured organization, tests, trained personnel, etc.) and documents (e.g., policies, plans, studies, procedures, specifications, reports, etc.). Related term: Deliverable.

Front 57

Rolling Wave Planning

Back 57

An iterative planning technique in which the work to be accomplished in the near term is planned in detail, while the work in the future is planned at a higher level.

Front 58

Scope

Back 58

The sum of the products, services, and results to be provided as a project. Related term: Project Scope and Product Scope.

Front 59

Scope Baseline

Back 59

The approved version of a scope statement, work breakdown structure (WBS), and its associated WBS dictionary, that can be changed only through formal change control procedures and is used as a basis for comparison.

Front 60

Scope Creep

Back 60

The uncontrolled expansion to product or project scope without adjustments to time, cost, and resources.

Front 61

Scope Management Plan

Back 61

A component of the project or program management plan that describes how the scope will be defined, developed, monitored, controlled, and verified.

Front 62

Specification

Back 62

A document that specifies, in a complete, precise, verifiable manner, the requirements, design, behavior, or other characteristics of a system, component, product, result, or service and the procedures for determining whether these provisions have been satisfied. Examples are: requirement specification, design specification, product specification, and test specification.

Front 63

Standard

Back 63

A document that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines, or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context.

Front 64

Unanimity

Back 64

Agreement by everyone in the group on a single course of action.

Front 65

Validate Scope

Back 65

The process of formalizing acceptance of the completed project deliverables.

Front 66

Validation

Back 66

The assurance that a product, service, or system meets the needs of the customer and other identified stakeholders. It often involves acceptance and suitability with external customers.

Front 67

Value Engineering

Back 67

An approach used to optimize project life cycle costs, save time, increase profits, improve quality, expand market share, solve problems, and/or use resources more effectively.

Front 68

Variance

Back 68

A quantifiable deviation, departure, or divergence away from a known baseline or expected value.

Front 69

Variance Analysis

Back 69

A technique for determining the cause and degree of difference between the baseline and actual performance.

Front 70

Verification

Back 70

The evaluation of whether or not a product, service, or system complies with a regulation, requirement, specification, or imposed condition. It is often an internal process. Contrast with: Validation.

Front 71

Verified Deliverables

Back 71

Completed project deliverables that have been checked and confirmed for correctness through the Control Quality process.

Front 72

Voice of the Customer

Back 72

A planning technique used to provide products, services, and results that truly reflect customer requirements by translating those customer requirements into the appropriate technical requirements for each phase of project product development.

Front 73

WBS Dictionary

Back 73

A document that provides detailed deliverable, activity, and scheduling information about each component in the work breakdown structure.

Front 74

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Back 74

A hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables.

Front 75

Work Breakdown Structure Component

Back 75

An entry in the work breakdown structure that can be at any level.

Front 76

Work Package

Back 76

The work defined at the lowest level of the work breakdown structure for which cost and duration can be estimated and managed.