Glossary
The behavioral approaches applied by individuals in leadership positions to meet requirements and attain objectives and goals.
An approach to managing a project lifecycle (or certain situations during a project lifecycle) with a very short planning horizon of less than month, using Agile methods to ease frequent change. Also called “adaptive approach”. Many requirements are identified and described during the course of the project and “the way is made by walking”. Contrasts with Waterfall and Rolling wave approaches.
The defense of a lack of discipline and planning with the excuse “we are doing things the Agile way”. Contrasts with the Waterfall excuse.
Developed originally for software development, but expanded and transferred into other application areas: Several disciplined approaches characterized by very short planning horizons, rather low planning depth, and leaderless organization. A typical aspect of Agile methods is the rejection of having a project manager and the reliance on self-organizing teams. Contrast with predictive methods.
An ideological approach to project management that considers Agile methods generally superior to other approaches, independent of the project situation. Contrasts with Predictionism.
An overlay of one or more project team structure(s) over a functional organization structure with the project manager(s) and the functional managers on eye level. Contrasts with strong and weak matrix.
Methods to measure and positively influence the benefits from a project deliverables. May include the attempt to make a budget overrun, an increased price in a customer project, re-definition of deadlines, and other changes of fundamental parameters acceptable to stakeholders by increasing the tangible or intangible benefits for these stakeholders. Contrasts with cost engineering.
A project that is performed in an already developed environment. “Brownfield” may literally refer to a piece of developed land, but the term may also be used metaphorically for similar situations in other industries.
Change Control Board. A body set up by key stakeholders to decide upon changes that are beyond the decision authorization of the team, the project manager, or the project sponsor. In a customer project, there may be an internal CCB and a joint CCB with the customer.
A set of processes that describe how change requests will be managed in the project.
A game theoretical dilemma situation in which players wait for others to “jump first”, for instance when they should tell a program or project manager that they are late, but hope that someone else will be late too.
The Connective Leadership Institute, a consultancy founded by Prof. Jean Lipman-Blumen to support the practical application of the Connective Leadership model.
An approach developed by Prof. Jean Lipman-Blumen to describe leadership challenges and the responses by leaders to them in a tension field between diversity and interdependence (heroism and collaboration) in a specific application of a set of nine achieving styles.
Methods to measure and positively influence the costs of a project. May include attempts to identify budget overruns early and avoid and mitigate them. Contrasts with benefit engineering.
An interview technique that uses moments of special relevance for the interviewed person as an entry point to dig deeper in the person’s memory. Can also be used in workshops.
Behavior of leaders who prefer to join forces with other people to meet tasks together.
Behavior of leaders who prefer to actively support others in achieving their goals.
“Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations”*. Or in short: Systems reflect the relationships among those who make them.
Team members in a project who are expected and planned to be active in the project over most of its time, and who will perceive project success as personal success, and project failure as personal failure.
A project executed by a performing organization for a (mostly) paying customer organization. Most customer projects are profit centers. Contrasts with internal project.
Behavior of leaders who prefer to delegate tasks as “stretch assignments” to people who have not yet proven that they can meet them but have a potential to grow with them.
Effort-reward imbalance, a situation in which an individual considers the energy and time dedicated to the employer as much higher than the rewards (tangible and intangible) that the person receives back in return. ERI is a common cause for burn-out and for staff attrition.
Limitations of predictability, plannability, risk management, detectability, etc. These limitations can be fundamental or be due to inadequacies and constrained availability of resources, time, and money. Influences the planning horizon.
A statement that is considered true by most stakeholders based on the perceived consensus. A factoid may be false because consensus is not a full replacement for evidence. Factoids are often communicated in statements such as “We all know that . . .”.
Ad hoc change decision that becomes necessary during an implementation phase, often with an urgency that makes it necessary to circumvent a change request process.
Decision makers who are guided by the first sentence in the Grimm’s fairytale The Frog King, “In olden times, when wishing did help one . . .”.
A review process in a strictly sequential phase gate process, which is performed after a finished phase to review its correctness and in a second step if the project can enter the next phase. This review process can take significant time and should therefore not be confused with a milestone, which has a duration of zero.
A project performed in an undeveloped environment. May be literally a green field, but may also be used metaphorically in other industries.
Tangible assets—money, personnel, equipment, facilities, etc.—that can be utilized by a project team as resources. These assets and the effectiveness and efficiency of their use are commonly easy to measure. Contrast with soft assets.
A situation when a project is late or otherwise non-performant, because team members and contractors report that they are on schedule, hoping that they can make up the lost time with overtime work, or that someone else may delay the project (chicken run).
A project run by a performing organization for its own purposes. Most internal projects are cost centers. Contrasts with customer project.
Behavior of leaders who prefer to rely on their own skills and proficiency.
The International Project Management Association, an umbrella organization with 62 national member associations mostly in Europe, representing 40,000 members*. Competes with PMI for certification.
The subset of the project stakeholders who have direct and legitimate influence on the project.
A project with similar predecessor projects, that give the team members confidence in their capabilities and routine.
A project run inside an organization, where traffic-lights are used to indicate the status of a project: The melon project stands on “green” based on superficial perception, but, similar to a watermelon, the deeper one drills, the redder it gets.
A dilemma situation in game theory, when parties act to serve their particular interests that conflict with a common interest, and where a party must fear disadvantages when it would act to serve the common interest instead.
A project that gets only one chance to successfully deliver its products, services, or other kind of results.
Behavior of leaders, who prefer to build an aura of charisma around themselves.
A human or non-human resource that is planned to be used in a project, but does not exist, exists but is not available, may be available but has not been formally booked, or is over allocated to more work items concurrently than the resource can handle.
A project phase is a discrete time period in a strictly sequential (“phase-gate”) or overlapping (“fast-tracked”) phase model. Different phases in a project may have specific teams, work contents, locations, cost centers, or other characterizing differences.
The point in the future up to which a project manager intends to plan the project. The time to the planning horizon may span anything between some days or the entire remaining duration of the project. A planning horizon may also relate to the level of detail and other aspects of a plan and is among others influenced by the event horizon.
The Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, a globally accepted descriptive standard for project management.
The Project Management Institute, a global professional association with over 465,000 members*. Mostly known for standardization and certification.
Project Management Professional, a professional certification by PMI, actively held by over 665,000 individuals*.
In multi-project management, a portfolio is a collection of programs, projects, and operational work under a common management domain that share and compete for common resources. They may have different contents and may not share common goals.
Behavior of leaders, who prefer to deploy own resources for tasks and bring order out of chaos.
Application of specific approaches, tools, techniques, behaviors, and procedures with the intention to guide action and bring about desired results.
Developed originally for engineering development, but expanded and transferred into other application areas: Several disciplined approaches are characterized by long planning horizons, rather high planning depth, and organization with strong leaders. Contrast with Agile methods.
An ideological approach (not only) to project management that considers predictive methods generally superior to other approaches, independent of the project situation. Contrasts with Agilism.
A combination of process know-how that an organization owns and the availability of specific resources to implement this know-how. Process assets commonly include documented procedures, forms, templates, tools, databases, and documented lessons learned. Process assets in an organization (or a portfolio of projects under one management domain) are often administered by a Project Management Office (PMO).
In multi-project management, a program is a collection of projects (and other work) that is performed to achieve common goals and benefits beyond their specific goals and benefits. The projects may be run under different management domains and may take their resources from different sources.
An investment that consists of a temporary and unique set of actions performed to develop required or necessary products, services, or other kinds of results.
A management function above the program or project manager level, mostly applied to ensure common terminology among the projects, compliance with corporate rules and processes, and legal requirements. Another goal is alignment with corporate strategy and using lessons from the projects to improve this strategy.
An operational unit that manages standardized processes, procedures, templates, software, and other process assets in an organization put in place to unify methodology and terminology. This office often organizes training for the implementation of their methodologies across the organization.
The team that supports the project manager in the tasks necessary to manage the project. It may share responsibility for project success and failure with the project manager.
The administrator of an investment, which meets the definition of a project and has sufficient complexity to require active management under formal or informal mandate.
A period after deliverable handover from a project to an operational production or service environment, during which the operations are performed at low rate and slowly increased, to avoid being flooded by a big number of bad results and too have resources free if initial problems need to be managed. During this time, the project shares responsibility for the deliverables with operations.
Laying hands again on a deliverable that was considered finished before to repair or alter it. Hours of rework in a project are a great metric to assess efficiency and quality in a project.
A session of a focus group to identify risks and populate the risk register with these risks and data on them.
An approach to managing projects with a limited prediction and planning horizon and progressive elaboration of plans. The plans are based on early descriptions of requirements that are expected to be refined and changed during the course of the project, which will then lead to refinement and change of the plans. Contrasts with Agile and Waterfall approaches.
The combination of (a) the understanding that the same practice that was successful in a given situation in the past may fail in a different situation, or vice versa, (b) the ability to adjust practices to the specific needs of the project and the current situation, and (c) the care that this adaptiveness is not perceived by others as signals of lack of authenticity or reliability.
Situational project management
An approach that is based on the understanding that the same practice that was successful in one situation may fail in another one applies situational intelligence to project situations.
Behavior of leaders who prefer to delegate tasks to people who have already proven their ability to meet them.
Intangible assets that can be utilized by a project team as resources, such as defined processes, motivation, and reputation. These assets and the effectiveness and efficiency of their use are commonly difficult to measure. Contrast with hard assets.
Staged Response Diagram, a diagram that triggers increased attention and actions when certain limits are exceeded to protect a deadline. Can also be used to protect a budget or another kind of constraint.
The project does not have a single deliverable handover that completes the project and commences the use of the deliverables. Instead deliverables are handed over in stages, and while the team expands the scope of the product or service in steps, the team can implement feedback from the recipients (e.g., users) and incorporate it in its further development.
Any person, group of people, or organization that project managers should consider during their decision processes.
The adjustment of decision processes to include needs, wants, expectations, requirements of stakeholders, and improve acceptance and possibly engagement by them.
Probabilistic methods that use the mathematics of statistics on activities and other items that do not have big numbers (e.g., of outputs) to validate or verify the correctness of the numbers.
An overlay of one or more project team structure(s) over a functional organization structure with the project manager(s) in the more powerful position. Very common in customer projects. Contrasts with balanced and weak matrix.
A complex system of contracts with customers and contractors that spans over three or more tiers.
A game-theoretical model, in which a depletable common resource is overused by its owners, as each of the owners wishes to have a maximum personal benefit, ignoring the damage of the resource that results from the behavior. It is a form of a Nash equilibrium.
The seemingly illogical observation that some people appear as huge and frightening from a distance but shrink to normally sized humans in proximity.
Behavior of leaders, who prefer to support others in achieving their goals by inspiring and motivating them.
Voice of the Customer, a concept from Japanese quality management: Customers tell the producer what they need, but in their language and with many communication deficiencies, that make it necessary to translate the information into a technically precise form.
An approach to planning and performing a project in a predictive manner with a long-term planning horizon—ideally over the entire project lifecycle. Assumes static definitions of requirements and long-term predictability and plannability. Contrasts with Agile and Rolling wave approaches.
The rejection of an important change because it is “not in the plan”. Contrasts with the Agile excuse.
An overlay of one or more project team structure(s) over a functional organization structure with the managers of the functional structure in the more powerful position. Very common in internal projects. Contrasts with strong and balanced matrix.
In a decomposed project: A hierarchical decomposition of the entire project, commonly in graphical representation or in form of indented lists.
In a composed project: A structuring system that captures the contributions of teams and consolidates them up to project level.
In traditional application, the WBS consists of planning packages, among them control accounts and work packages, which are its lowest-level elements. In software, all WBS components are called tasks, and the lowest level may be individual activities.
A flow of activities that are partially separate from other activities in the project and contribute to key deliverables.
A project that is not only a good one following metrics applicable, but a great one, causing delight and excitement for stakeholders.
A project that is bound for failure right from the beginning, because no consideration was given to the match of project type and approach to the project, imbalance of obligations on the project with authorization and resources provided, or an environment in which other things were more important than project results.
* (Conway, 1968).
† (GPM, n.d., 2015).
* By August 2015. (Source: Internal communications.)