This glossary of terms is intended as a reference aid and should not be considered an exhaustive or complete list of all the terms set forth in this book or in the project management literature on the topics discussed herein.

A

Accountability:

Broadly defined, accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, projects, decisions, and policies including the administration, governance, and implementation within the scope of the role in a project or employment position.

Adaptation Governance:

Sensitivity to climate change is a challenge to humanity that requires an integrated, anticipatory, and strategic approach to governance.

Agile Project Management:

Agile methods promote a process that encourages development iterations, teamwork, stakeholder involvement, objective metrics, and effective controls. While the term was originally associated with software development projects, Agile approaches can apply to any project and has been used successfully in megaprojects.

Alternative Dispute Resolution:

Provides procedures for settling disputes by means other than litigation and includes such mechanisms as negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and mini trials.

Ambiguity:

Subject to more than one interpretation.

Architecture Governance:

The principles, standards, guidelines, contractual obligations, and regulatory framework within which goals are met at an enterprise‐wide level.

Association of Project Management (APM):

The APM is a U.K.‐based organization committed to developing and promoting project and program management.

Assumption:

Something taken as true without proof. In planning, assumptions regarding staffing, complexity, learning curves, and many other factors are made to create plan scenarios. These provide the basis for estimating. Assumptions are not facts. Alternative assumptions should be made to get a sense of what might happen in a given project.

Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM):

The AIPM is the primary body for project management in Australia. Formed in 1976 as the Project Managers’ Forum, the AIPM has been instrumental in progressing the profession of project management in Australia in the decades since.

B

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program:

This program provides some key elements for analyzing an organization’s governance system. These elements include organizational governance, legal and ethical behavior, and societal responsibilities and community support.

Bankable Projects:

Lenders are willing to finance the project because it is financially, environmentally, economically, technically, and socially feasible.

Basel III:

Basel III is an internationally agreed set of measures developed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in response to the financial crisis of 2007–2009. The measures aim to strengthen the regulation, supervision and risk management of banks.

Baseline:

A point of reference. The plan used as the comparison point for project control reporting. There are three baselines in a project: schedule baseline, cost baseline, and product (scope) baseline. The combination of these is referred to as the performance measurement baseline.

Best Value Procurement:

The owner considers both qualifications and cost when selecting the design‐build team.

Bilateral Investment Treaty:

These Treaties are entered into by countries seeking protection for investments made by investors from their own state from wrongful acts of host countries including expropriation, nationalization, and discrimination.

Blended Concessional Financing:

Explicitly uses scarce concessional financing to enable mobilization of private investment into areas it would not have otherwise gone.

Blue Economy Strategy:

The blue economy is a globally emerging concept for oceans governance that seeks to tap the economic potential of the oceans in environmentally sustainable ways.

Blue Ocean Strategy:

A focus on differentiating a project or product from its competitors through innovation.

Bonds:

A financial security, bearing a fixed interest rate, issued by private businesses or governments as a means of raising money and long‐term funds (i.e. borrowing). When an investor buys bonds, he is lending money to the issuer. Bonds are repaid by the issuer at maturity.

Building Information Model (BIM):

A digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. It serves as a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility, constituting a reliable basis for decisions during its life cycle, from inception onward.

Build‐Operate‐Transfer (BOT):

A popular form of project delivery whereby the project is transferred back to the owner or party granting the concession after it has been built and operated for a period of time stated in the concession.

Business Case:

The information that describes the justification for a project. The project is justified if the expected benefits outweigh estimated costs and risks. The business case is often complex and may require financial analysis, technical analysis, organization impact analysis, and a feasibility study.

Business Continuity Institute (BCI):

Along with the Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRII), BCI formulates the common body of knowledge that provides a structured and systematic approach to business continuity.

Business Continuity Management:

Business continuity management seeks to identify potential risks or threats to an organization and allows it to plan and develop ways to react and recover from major risk events. Business continuity management is tied closely to crisis management that systematically deals with a disaster or a risk event as it arises.

C

Catastrophic Loss:

One or more related losses whose consequences are extremely harsh in their severity, such as total loss of assets or loss of life.

Central Artery/Tunnel Project:

The Central Artery/Tunnel Project in Boston, often referred to as the “CA/T Project” or the “Big Dig,” was the country’s largest publicly funded construction project, costing $14.8 billion. It was known for its technological advancement of slurry wall construction, ground freezing, and the world’s widest cable‐stayed bridge.

Change:

Difference in an expected value or event. The most significant changes in project management are related to scope definition, availability of resources, schedule, and budget.

Change Management:

The process of identifying, documenting, approving, and implementing changes within a project. It is a structured and systemic approach to achieve a sustainable change in human behavior within an organization.

Change Request:

A documented request for a change in scope or other aspects of the plan.

Charter:

A high‐level document usually issued by the project initiator or sponsor that describes the purpose of a project, the manner in which it will be structured, and how it will be implemented, and that provides the authorization for the project.

Client:

The person or organization that is the principle beneficiary of the project, sometimes called the “project owner.” Generally, the client has significant authority regarding scope definition and whether the project should be initiated and/or continued.

Cohesion Fund:

An instrument of the EU’s regional policy which supports investments in the field of environment and trans‐European networks in the area of transport infrastructure.

Collective Action Perspective:

Megaprojects are vast actor‐networks formed to develop a new large‐scale designed artefact: the infrastructure system. High‐order decision‐making within these networks is driven by the need to build interorganizational consensus at the core of the network.

Collective Mindfulness:

Collective mindfulness refers to organizational processes or practices that help organizations detect, categorize, and respond to unexpected events and errors. Collective mindfulness is about both the quality of attention and conserving scarce attention.

Complex Adaptive Systems:

They are characterized by feedback loops, tipping points and emergent properties, and their future is impacted by their past, and surprise is inevitable.

Complexity:

Complexity arises from the interdependency of thousands of moving parts associated with funding, managing, and governing social and organizational relations and is particularly significant in megaprojects. Importantly, as noted by scholars in the field of project management, it is, not the cost but the complexity that marks out a megaproject.

Communications Management:

The process of identifying, creating, reviewing, and distributing communications to stakeholders within a project, as well as receiving feedback and information.

Conceptual Phase:

A period of time in which the description of how a new product will work and meet its performance requirements is formulated.

Concession Agreement:

The agreement with a government body that entitles a private entity to undertake an otherwise public service.

Configuration Management:

Adopted by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) in the 1950s as a technical management discipline, it is a process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a project’s performance, both functional and physical attributes of its design and operational requirements throughout the project’s life cycle.

Conflict:

Competing interest and cultural divides.

Consensus:

Unanimous agreement among the decision makers that everyone can at least live with the decision (or solution). To live with the decision, one has to be convinced that the decision will adequately achieve objectives. As long as someone believes that the decision will not achieve the objectives, there is no consensus.

Consortium:

A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations, or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal.

Constraints:

The factors that must be considered during the life of the project that cannot be changed. These may include deadlines, regulatory requirements, and dependencies on other projects to deliver.

Construction Manager at Risk:

The construction manager (CM) begins work on the project during the design phase to provide constructability, pricing, and sequencing analysis of the design. The CM becomes the design‐build contractor when a guaranteed maximum price is agreed upon by the project sponsor and the CM.

Contingency Reserve:

A designated amount of time and/or budget to account for parts of the project that cannot be fully predicted such as the risk of schedule and cost slippage due to unknown knowns. For example, it is relatively certain that there will be some rework, but the amount of rework and where it will occur in the project (or phase) are not known.

Control:

The process of monitoring, measuring, and reporting on progress and taking corrective action to ensure project objectives are met.

Corporate Governance:

The system by which an organization is overseen and controlled by its shareholders.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR):

CSR is defined by the World Bank as the commitment of business to contribute to sustainable economic development, working with the employees, their families, the local community, and society at large to improve quality of life in ways that are both good for business and good for development.

Cost‐Benefit Analysis:

Used to show that the expected benefits of a project are sufficient to warrant the cost of carrying it out. Monetary units are usually used for the comparison. A CBA requires an investigation of a project’s net impact on economic, and social welfare. Benefits and costs are typically evaluated for a period that includes the construction period and an operations period ranging from 20 to 50 years after the initial project investments are completed.

Country Partnership Frameworks:

Partnering with other International Government Organizations’ (IGOs) to fund projects in the poorest of countries.

Credit Rating Agency:

Evaluates the likelihood of success of a public financing undertaking. Project debt ratings address default probability or the level of certainty with which lenders can expect to receive timely and full payment of principal and interest according to the terms of the financing documents.

Critical Infrastructure:

As defined by the U.S. National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), critical infrastructure includes systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital that the incapacity or destruction of such may have a debilitating impact on the security, economy, public health or safety, environment, or any combination of these matters across any federal, state, regional, territorial, or local jurisdiction.

Critical Path:

The critical path is the sequence of activities that must be completed on time for the entire project to be completed on schedule. It is the longest‐duration path through the project and the shortest amount of time in which a project can be completed.

Crossrail Project:

The Crossrail Project, in London, is presently the largest rail network expansion project in Europe.

Culture:

Socially learned behaviors and assumptions of social interaction and problem solving.

D

Debt Service:

Required payments on borrowings including state bonds and notes.

Debt Service Cover Ratio (DSCR):

The DSCR tells you how much equity will be needed to timely pay off the short‐term debt commitments in the project financing agreement. Typically, equity sponsors may include the project owner (typically a public entity), the project developer or main contractor, and often institutional investors that do not play an active role in the project and are known as passive investors.

Design (Conceptual):

The period during which public hearings are held, financing is authorized, environmental approvals are obtained, and right‐of‐way plans are developed to describe how a new project will be structured and how it will meet its performance requirements.

Design (Final):

Requires multiple separate design contracts ranging from less than $1 million to over $50 million. Activities can include right‐of‐way (ROW) acquisitions, traffic control plans, utility drawings, permits and licensing, final cost estimates, and contractor bid solicitation.

Design‐Bid‐Build:

The traditional project delivery method used whereby design and construction are sequential steps in the project development process.

Design‐Build:

It is a method to deliver a project in which the design and construction services are contracted by a single entity known as the design‐builder or design‐build contractor. In contrast to design‐bid‐build, design‐build relies on a single point of responsibility contract and is used to minimize risks for the project owner and reduces the delivery schedule by overlapping the design phase and construction phase of a project.

Design Development:

Design development is the evolution of design during the life of the project. There are many potential reasons for design changes, including environmental, risk, quality, cost, and schedule issues. Design professionals must balance process and structural considerations with regulatory, maintainability, and human factors.

Developing Country:

Defined by the World Bank in terms of gross national income per capita.

Differing Site Conditions:

These are conditions that can occur on a project that were not anticipated in the project’s design and drawings. Differing site conditions can also shift the risk on a project from the contractor to the owner if they are materially different than represented in the contract drawings.

Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRII):

Along with the Business Continuity Institute (BCI), the DRII formulates the common body of knowledge that provides a structured and systematic approach to business continuity.

Dispute Review Board (DRB):

A panel of experienced, respected, and impartial reviewers that takes in all the facts of a dispute and makes recommendations on the basis of those facts and the board’s expertise.

E

Earned Value:

An approach whereby you monitor the project plan, actual work, and work‐completed value to see if a project is on track. Earned value shows how much of the budget and time should have been spent for work done, and what are the variances from the budget, the estimate to complete, and the budget at completion.

Electronic Identification:

The program that provided for notification to contract management upon entry or exit on the work site.

Emergency Preparedness:

The project’s plan for responding to emergencies, including force majeure events, disasters, catastrophes, shutdowns, and fatalities and serious injuries.

Eminent Domain:

Sometimes called compulsory purchase, expropriation or simply a taking. It refers to the power of the government to take private property and convert it into public use.

Empirical Research:

A way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Empirical evidence (the record of one’s direct observations or experiences) can be analyzed quantitatively or qualitatively. Through quantifying the evidence or making sense of it in qualitative form, a researcher can answer empirical questions, which should be clearly defined and answerable with the evidence collected (usually called data). Research design varies by field and by the question being investigated.

Enterprise Governance:

The entire accountability framework of the organization.

Environmental Impact Assessment:

A project review to assess the impact a project will have on the local environment including the community, its businesses, and the natural environment by evaluating the project through the EIA, a determination can be made as to whether the project is safe to move forward or if alternative options should be explored.

Equator Principles:

A financial industry benchmark for determining, assessing, and managing social and environmental risk in project financing. The Equator Principles incorporate the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and World Bank environmental performance standards and guidelines.

Errors and Omissions (E&O) Insurance:

Professional liability or mal‐practice insurance, which covers the professional negligence of design professionals.

Escalation of Commitment (EOC):

Escalation of commitment (EOC) is a common behavior among investors who receive negative feedback (NF) in public‐private partnership (PPP) projects, and this behavior typically leads to sizable losses

Ethics:

The basic concepts and fundamental principles of human conduct. It includes study of universal values such as the essential equality of all men and women, human or natural rights, obedience to the law of the land, concern for health and safety, and, increasingly, concern for the natural environment.

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD):

Located in London, the EBRD serves as the primary lender to the developing world, particularly Eastern Europe and Russia, by virtue of their membership.

European Regional Development Fund:

Finances programs in shared responsibility between the European Commission and national and regional authorities in Member States.

Eurotunnel:

The company that was formed on 13 August 1986, to finance, build, and operate a tunnel between Britain and France. Groupe Euro‐tunnel S.A. presently manages and operates the car shuttle services and earns revenue on other trains passing through the tunnel. It is listed on both the London Stock Exchange and Euronext Paris.

Events and Causal Factors Analysis (ECFA):

An integral and important part of the management oversight and risk tree (MORT‐based) accident investigation process.

Ex Ante Evaluations:

In the case of project finance, ex ante means assessment of a project during the early conception and planning phases to test its viability and feasibility. The predicted outcome serves as a basis for comparing the prediction to the actual results (ex‐post).

Ex Post Evaluations:

Represents the actual results attained by the project, which is the return on investment that the project yielded. Ex‐post evaluations are used throughout the European Commission to assess whether a specific intervention was justified and whether it worked (or is working) as expected in achieving its objectives and why. Ex‐post evaluations also look for unintended effects (i.e. those which were not anticipated at the time of the initial project feasibility study.

Export Credit Agencies:

Government departments or financial institutions that benefit from government guarantees or direct funding, which provide financing as a means of supporting exports from their countries.

Expropriation:

The taking over by a state of a company or investment project, with compensation usually being paid. Creeping expropriation occurs when a government gradually takes over an asset by taxation, regulation, access, or change in the law.

F

Fast‐Track Construction:

Involves the commencement of construction before all of the design is completed.

Feasibility Study:

A document that confirms the likelihood that a range of alternative solutions will meet the requirements of the customer.

Federal Highway Administration (FHWA):

The entity within the U.S. Department of Transportation that oversees state‐level projects that receive federal‐aid highways funds.

Finance Plan:

A project’s report to the public on the project’s design and construction status, cost center status, audits, insurance and safety and health program, and the project financing and budget.

Financial Structure:

The manner in which the project is funded, whether through public or private financing, equity, debt, bonds, or revenue streams.

Force Majeure:

An event that is not foreseeable and is beyond the control of the parties, such as a hurricane, earthquake, act of war, or change in the law that will excuse the parties from fulfilling their contractual obligations. Projects generally obtain insurance to protect against these events.

Foreign Direct Investment:

A business decision to acquire a substantial stake in a foreign business or project to invest in or buy it outright in order to expand its operations to a new region.

Funder:

The person or group, often called sponsor, which provides the financial resources, in cash or in kind, for a project.

G

General Obligation Bonds:

Debt instruments issued by state and local governments to fund highway and infrastructure projects.

Global Megaproject:

Global megaprojects consist of the creation of a special organizational structure for the purpose of financing a unique multi‐billion‐dollar investment involving numerous stakeholders and complex interdependencies and interorganizational relations in diverse regions of the world that will provide sustainable and long‐term benefits to local communities and the larger eco system of which the megaproject is a part.

Globalization:

The spread of free‐market capitalism to virtually every country in the world.

Golden Age of Globalization:

The period 1870–1940 when international trade, international migration flows and international mobility of financial capital reached historical peaks.

Governance:

A set of relationships between a company’s management, its board, its shareholders, and other stakeholders. Project governance is defined as the framework of authority and accountability that defines and controls the outputs, outcomes and benefits from projects, programs, and portfolios.

Governance Structure:

An oversight and control function that can change to adapt to the emerging context of the project. Megaprojects are unique in that traditional hierarchical structures are replaced by a unique blending of vertical and horizontal engagements that require coordination.

Grand Challenges:

Ambitious but achievable goals that harness science, technology, and innovation to solve important national or global problems.

Great Megaproject Era:

Defined by Altshuler and Luberoff (2003) as the period between the late 1990s when the federal Interstate Highway Project got underway and the late 1960s when construction peaked.

Green Bond:

A type of fixed‐income instrument that is specifically earmarked to raise money for climate and environmental projects. These bonds are typically asset‐linked and backed by the issuing entity's balance sheet, so they usually carry the same credit rating as their issuers’ other debt obligations.

Greenfield Sites:

An area of agricultural or forest land, or some other undeveloped site, earmarked for commercial development or industrial projects.

H

Hazards:

The real or potential conditions (natural, accidental, or human) that cause injury to people or loss or damage to property, or which interfere with the operations of a project or the government owner.

I

Imprévision theory:

The right to reject a contract that has become uneconomic.

Improvisation:

Improvisation has been defined as the practice of reacting and of making and creating. Improvisation is linked with aspects of time, and, particularly, pressure to achieve to a demanding or compressed timetable, which is a typical attribute of most megaprojects. Improvisation is a developing theory of project management and is not recognized universally by all the professional bodies.

Infrastructure Report Card:

A Report card issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) revealing the condition of infrastructure in the United States. In 2021, America’s Infrastructure GPA is a C‐.

Initiating (Project):

The process of describing and deciding to begin a project (or phase) and authorizing the project manager to expend resources, effort, and money for those that are initiated.

Innovation:

The successful exploitation of new ideas.

Innovation Megaproject:

Innovation has been defined in the context of megaprojects as a new product, process, or service that has a step change and creates value including financial value, environmental value, societal value, and job creation.

Innovative Finance:

Innovative methods of financing construction, maintenance, or operation of transportation facilities. The term innovative finance covers a broad variety of nontraditional financing, including the use of private funds or the use of public funds in a new way, for example, grant anticipation notes or special tax districts.

Institutional Learning:

Institutional learning is proposed as a process through which adaptations can be made to accommodate shortcomings in the prevailing institutional environment.

Integrated Change Control:

A centralized organization within a project to manage all claims and changes that arise during the course of the project. This centralized system provides many benefits, including more informed decision making, consistency in decision making, important data for the prevention and mitigation of risk, and finance and budget controls.

Integrated Project Delivery (IPD):

Integrated project delivery (IPD), as defined by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), is a project delivery approach that integrates people, systems, business structures, and practices into a process that collaboratively harnesses the talent and insights of all participants to optimize project results, increase value to the owner, reduce waste, and maximize efficiency through all phases of design, fabrication, and construction (AIA).

Integrated Project Organization (IPO):

An organization where both the owner’s employees and the management consultant’s employees work under one organization structure.

Integration:

The coming together of primary participants (which could include owner, designer, constructor, design consultants, and trade contractors, or key systems suppliers) at the beginning of a project, for the purpose of designing and constructing the project together as a team. Also includes the integration of processes and programs such as integrated change control, quality control, and risk management.

International Finance Corporation (IFC):

Established in 1956 as the private sector arm of the World Bank Group to advance economic development by investing in strictly for‐profit and commercial projects which reduce poverty and promote development.

International Project Finance Association (IPFA):

An international, independent, not‐for‐profit association established in 1998. The IPFA aims to raise awareness and understanding about project public–private partnerships (PPPs), and their crucial role in infrastructure and economic development.

International Project Management Association (IPMA):

The IPMA is a nonprofit, Swiss‐registered organization for the promotion of project management internationally. The IPMA is a federation of more than 50 national and internationally oriented project management associations with over 120 000 members worldwide as of 2012.

International Space Station:

An international partnership representing 15 countries that developed a modular space station in low Earth orbit to study the Earth’s environment and the universe.

Islamic Finance:

Finance that is structured to be compliant with the principles of Islamic law (known as Shariah law in Arabic). Key principles require financing without interest and uncertainty and the sharing of profits and losses.

L

Leaders:

Those who create a vision, develop strategies to achieve the vision, and implement the vision. Leaders must impact human emotion, change minds, and motivate and inspire individuals to do things they have never done before, or do things in a different way.

Lenders:

The entities providing debt contributions to the project company.

Life Cycle Costs:

The costs of a project over its entire life – from project inception to the end of a transportation facility’s design life.

Loss Control:

An organized and usually continuous effort to help decrease the possibility of unforeseen losses and the impact of those that do occur. Loss control can be applied to all kinds of losses on a construction project such as those caused by contractor negligence, design error, fires, electrical surges, hurricanes, or just about anything that results in unexpected harm, injuries, or damage.

M

Management Consultant:

The party responsible for overseeing the project construction. Sometimes called a delivery team.

Management Reserve:

A designated amount of time and/or budget to account for parts of the project that cannot be predicted. These are sometimes called “unknown unknowns.” Use of the management reserve generally requires a change to the total budget.

Megaproject:

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) characterizes megaprojects as any projects costing $1 billion or more, and they are commonly distinguished by size, duration, uncertainty, and significant political and external influences.

Metrics:

Metrics are quantitative measures, such as the number of on‐time projects. They are used in improvement programs to determine whether improvement has taken place or whether goals and objectives have been met.

Subordinated Debt/Mezzanine Financing:

A combination of financing instruments, with characteristics of both debt and equity, providing further debt contributions through higher‐risk, higher‐return instruments, and sometimes treated as equity.

Mobilization of Private Finance:

The Multilateral Development Bank’s ability to crowd‐in capital from private creditors as well as other nongovernmental organizations such as the export credit agencies.

Modular Innovation:

A significant change within a component but does not require change in the interacting set of components.

MORT Risk Factor Analysis:

MORT (management oversight and risk tree) was developed for the Department of Energy in the 1970s by Bill Johnson. The chart consists of 1500 items arranged into a large/complex fault tree, which is used primarily for accident investigation.

Multilateral Development Bank:

Agency or institution created by international agreement among multiple countries funded by its members. The major global multilateral, the World Bank Group consists of the IBRD and the IDA, the primary lenders to the developing world. The IFC encourages the investment of private capital.

N

Net Present Value (NPV):

Net present value (NPV) is an estimate that helps organizations determine the financial benefits of long‐term projects. NPV compares the value of a pound today to the value of that same pound in the future, taking inflation and returns into account.

Nonrecourse Loans:

refers to the lenders’ inability to access the capital or assets of the sponsor to repay the debt incurred by the project company. In cases where project financings are limited recourse as opposed to truly non‐recourse, the sponsor’s capital or assets may be at risk only for specific purposes and in specific (limited) amounts set forth in the project financing documentation.

O

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA):

OSHA is a federal government agency that continuously monitors and studies the reasons for project failures. Each year, OSHA identifies the most frequently cited violations of its own standards.

Optimism Bias:

Refers to biased estimations that managers form based on delusional optimism instead of on a rational cost‐benefits analysis.

Optimization:

Managed change and continuous improvement in project operations including governance, finance, technology, economic, and social dimensions.

Organizational Resilience:

Defined as the “capacity of a social system to proactively adapt to and recover from disturbances that are perceived within the system to fall outside the range of normal and expected disturbances.”

Organizational Structure:

An enterprise environmental factor that can affect the availability of resources and how projects are conducted. Organizational structures can range from functional to projectized, with a variety of matrix structures between them.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD):

A multilateral organization based in Paris and focused on the harmonization of the international trade laws and the advancement of international trade and development.

Oversight Coordination Committee (OCC):

Established by the Massachusetts state legislature to coordinate the oversight of the Big Dig among the Commonwealth’s major oversight agencies, including the Office of the Inspector General, the State Auditor’s Office, and the Office of the Attorney General.

Owner:

Usually the owner of a project’s assets in a public project that is commonly the government agency responsible for funding the project.

Owner‐Controlled Insurance Program (OCIP):

A comprehensive, project‐specific insurance program obtained by the owner and intended to cover all key project participants commonly used on megaprojects. An OCIP is managed by the project owner and has the benefits of economies of scale and centralized control.

P

Paris Club Investments:

The Paris Club is an informal group of creditor nations whose objective is to find workable solutions to payment problems faced by debtor nations. The Paris Club has 22 permanent members, including most of the western European and Scandinavian nations, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

Participatory Governance:

A structure in which stakeholders or external groups or committees are involved in the project’s decision making or oversight.

Partnering:

Establishing a long‐term win–win relationship based on mutual trust and teamwork and sharing of both risks and rewards. Partnering arrangements can be between labor and management, government owners and management consultants, subordinates and executives, suppliers and customers, designers and contractors, and contractors and contractors. The objective is to focus on what each party does best, by sharing financial and other resources, and establishing specific roles for each participant.

Performance Bond:

A bond payable if a project is not completed as specified.

Phase:

A set of project activities and tasks that usually result in the completion of one or more project deliverables.

Political Risk:

Risks associated with cross‐border investing usually comprising currency inconvertibility, expropriation, war and terrorism, nongovernment activists, and legal approvals. In the United States, it is often referred to as regulatory or financial risk.

Polycentric Governance:

An intuitive approach to structure large arenas of consensus‐oriented collective action including ecological, social, and environmental endeavors.

Portfolio:

A combination of projects and programs both related and unrelated and other matters managed under the organization’s strategic plan.

Power:

The ability to influence the actions of others. Power may come from formal delegation of authority, reference power, subject matter expertise, the ability to influence, rewards and penalties, as well as other sources.

Power Purchase Agreement:

A form of guarantee for the project sponsors and lenders that the purchaser will agree to purchase the output of the project at an agreed upon price and timeline.

Procurement Management:

A component of a project or program management plan that describes how a project team will acquire goods and services from outside the performing organization.

Program:

A group of related projects managed as a whole to obtain benefits not available from managing them individually.

Program Governance:

The structure by which related projects and other work are integrated, coordinated, and managed among all stakeholders in alignment with the strategic goals of the parent organization.

Program Management Office (PMO):

Provides support and oversight for the projects under its jurisdiction. The role of the PMO depends on the responsibility it assumes.

Project:

In the project management literature, project is generally defined as being temporary in nature; undertaken to create a unique project, service, or result; and completed when the goals are achieved or when the project is no longer viable.

Project Finance:

The financing of long‐term infrastructure, industrial projects, and public services based upon a nonrecourse or limited‐recourse financial structure whereby project debt and equity used to finance the project are paid back from the cash flow generated by the project.

Project Governance:

The system by which projects are managed to ensure benefits are received and requirements are met in alignment with the organization’s and/or the program’s goals.

Project Management:

The discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives.

Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK):

The Project Management Institute’s Body of Knowledge comprises the sum of knowledge within the profession of project management that is generally recognized as good practice.

Project Management Institute (PMI):

PMI is the world’s leading not‐for‐profit membership association for the project management profession, with more than 600 000 members and credential holders in more than 185 countries. PMI issues standards and guideline publications developed through a voluntary consensus standards development process.

Public‐Private Partnership (PPP):

The public and the private sector work together to design, construct, finance, operate, and maintain infrastructure projects. PPPs are usually, but not always, funded in part by the private sector and part by the public sector. While the public sector usually retains ownership in the facility or system, the private party will be given additional decision rights in determining how the project or task will be completed.

Q

Qualitative Risk Assessment:

As described in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), the process of qualitative risk analysis is to assess the likelihood that a specific risk will occur and the impact on cost, quality, or performance, including both negative effects for threats and positive effects for opportunities if it does occur.

Quality:

The extent to which the final deliverable conforms to the customer requirements.

Quality Assurance:

A structured review of the project, usually by an external resource, to determine the overall project performance (e.g. against schedule and budget) and conformance (i.e., to the management processes specified for the project).

Quality Control:

The internal monitoring and control of project deliverables, to ensure that they meet the quality targets set for the project.

Quality Planning:

The process of identifying and scheduling quality assurance and quality control activities to improve the level of quality within a project.

R

Rating:

An evaluation of creditworthiness provided by a rating agency such as Standard & Poor’s Corporation, Fitch Group, or Moody’ Investor Service.

Renewable Energy:

Energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, hydropower, biomass, and geothermal heat.

Resident Engineer:

The individual assigned as the authorized representative for the owner’s construction contracts on a project and interagency agreements.

Resilience:

The ability to return to a prior state after a perturbation. It has been used in the context of a cyber attack to survive, adapt, recover and return to a new normal after a cyber attack.

Resilience Thinking:

Resilience thinking addresses the dynamics and development of complex social–ecological systems (SES).

Return on Investment (ROI):

Every project is analyzed from a return‐on‐investment (ROI) perspective with profitability often a key consideration. ROI tries to directly measure the amount of return on a particular investment, relative to the investment’s cost.

Risk:

Any event that is likely to adversely affect a project’s ability to achieve the defined objectives or an event that creates an opportunity.

Risk Allocation:

The process of allocating responsibility for a risk to the party best able to manage the risk. Sometimes the best allocation is to share a risk.

Risk Identification:

Determining what risks or hazards exist or are anticipated, their characteristics, remoteness in time, duration period, and possible outcomes.

Risk Intelligence:

Is “the organizational ability to think holistically about risk and uncertainty, speak a common risk language and effectively use forward‐looking risk concepts and tools in making better decisions, alleviating threats, capitalizing on opportunities and creating lasting value.”

Risk Management:

The process of identifying, quantifying, mitigating, responding to, and controlling risks throughout a project’s life.

Risk Mitigation:

The actions taken to avoid, transfer, or mitigate risks within a project.

Risk Monitoring and Control:

Defined in PMI’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) as the process of identifying, analyzing, and planning for newly arising risks, keeping track of the identified risks and those on the watch list, reanalyzing existing risks, monitoring trigger conditions for contingency plans, monitoring residual risks, and reviewing the execution of risk responses while evaluating their effectiveness.

Risk Planning:

The identification and scheduling of actions needed to reduce the level of risk within a project.

Risk Response:

Action that can be taken to address the occurrence of a risk event. Contingency plans are collections of risk responses. Typical risk response methodologies include avoidance, loss prevention, loss reduction, separation, duplication, and risk transfer.

Risk Sharing:

A risk management method in which the cost of the consequences of a risk is distributed among several participants in an enterprise, such as in syndication.

Root‐Cause Analysis:

The Department of Energy defines root‐cause analysis as any analysis that identifies underlying deficiencies in a safety management system that, if corrected, would prevent the same and similar accidents from occurring, and to identify the lessons to be learned to promote the achievement of better consequences.

S

Safety and Health Awards for Recognized Excellence (SHARE):

An awards program used on the Big Dig to incentivize workers to exercise safe behaviors resulting in reduced lost time incidents and reduced Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recordables.

Shared Values:

Those principles or beliefs that the project participants agree are the most important and will be given priority over all other principles that may arise as the project evolves.

Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV):

An independent legal entity created to accomplish a specific project. Often a limited‐liability company or a limited‐liability partnership, the SPV generally is dissolved once the project is completed and its financial goals achieved.

Specialized Funding:

Used for Climate Change and other sustainable development goals by governments and non‐profit organizations.

Stakeholder:

Anyone, internal or external to an organization, who has an interest in a project or will be affected by its deliverables. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group defines partners and stakeholders to include “a wide range of groups that have a stake in their projects, are affected by their work, or help strengthen impact on sustainable private sector development.”

Standard of Care:

A designer’s normal standard of care is reasonable care required of members of one’s profession.

Strategic Misrepresentation:

Strategic misrepresentation is a behavioral bias that consists in the tendency to deliberately and systematically distort or misstate information for strategic purposes. It is sometimes also called political bias, strategic bias, power bias, or the Machiavelli factor.

Step‐In Rights:

The Right of a Lender under certain conditions usually a breach of the contract to step in and replace the existing contractor with a replacement contractor.

Strategy:

A direction in a project that contributes to the success and survival of the project in its environment and aligns with the goals of the project’s parent organization. Strategy is all about gaining (or being prepared to gain) a position of advantage over adversaries or best exploiting emerging possibilities. As there is always an element of uncertainty about the future, strategy is more about a set of options (strategic choices) than a fixed plan.

Supply Chain:

A network between the megaproject and its contractors and the contractors and sub‐contractors to produce and distribute a specific project, product or service. The entities in the supply chain include producers, vendors, warehouses, transportation companies, testing labs, and distribution centers.

Sustainable Development:

The meeting of present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Sustainable Repurposing:

The management of nuclear decommissioning in a sustainable way by repurposing the site to a new sustainable use such as parklands, community infrastructure, or small nuclear reactors.

System Engineering:

An interdisciplinary approach and means to enable the realization of successful systems.

Systems Integration:

Refers to the work undertaken across organizational boundaries in interorganizational projects to integrate the systems that these projects deliver.

System of Systems:

Multiple systems whose elements are managerially and/or operationally independent systems but are integrated collections of constituent systems that usually produce results unachievable by the individual systems alone (Source: System Engineering Handbook. International Council on Systems Engineering).

Systems Thinking:

The process by which one attempts to look at the whole rather than the individual parts to gain a better understanding of how the parts interact and are interdependent within the larger system.

T

Take or Pay Contract:

A contractual term whereby the buyer is unconditionally obligated to take any product or service that is being offered (and pay the corresponding purchase price), or to pay a specified amount if he refuses to take the product or service.

Transition Economies:

One that is changing from central planning to free markets. Since the collapse of communism in the late 1980s, countries of the former Soviet Union, and its satellite states, including Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria, sought to embrace market capitalism and abandon central planning. Although many eastern and central European countries completed the transition by 2000, there are more than 20 countries still in transition.

Transparency International:

An organization that supports a global movement working in over 100 countries to end the injustice of corruption.

U

Uncertainty:

Information inadequacy when too many variables interact – unknowable, unmeasurable, and uncontrollable.

United Nations 2020 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals:

Among the most ambitious of global initiatives consisting of 17 sustainable goals including no poverty, zero hunger, clean water and sanitation, climate action, life below water and life on land implemented in investment projects through the multilaterals and other organizations globally.

V

Value Capture:

A type of public financing where increases in the private land values generated by public transportation investments are “captured” to repay the cost of the public investment. Using value capture mechanisms to finance new or existing transportation infrastructure connects the benefit of the infrastructure investment with the cost to provide it.

Value Creation:

Value creation in megaprojects has been approached from outcome‐based and system lifecycle‐based perspectives. From the outcome‐based perspective, a megaproject creates value after the project’s completion for the organizations participating in it, when it achieves the desired outcomes set initially in the strategic front‐end phase.

Value Engineering (VE):

VE is a systematic method for improving the value of goods or products and services. It was developed at General Electric Corporation during World War II and is widely used in industry and government, particularly in areas such as defense, transportation, construction, and health care. VE is an effective technique for reducing costs, increasing productivity, and improving quality.

W

World Bank (WB):

A multilateral agency based in Washington, DC, whose primary mission is to lend to developing countries to assist in reducing the poverty level. The bank consists of the following divisions: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Guarantee Association (MIGA), and the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).