BICSI RTPM key terms

A document authorized by the project sponsor that formally starts the project and grants the project manager authority to apply organizational resources to project activities.

The person or group providing financial and political backing for the project, approving major changes, and removing obstacles beyond the project manager's control.

A written description of the project's deliverables, boundaries, and acceptance criteria that clarifies exactly what work is and is not included.

A hierarchical decomposition of the total project scope into smaller, manageable work packages that can be estimated, scheduled, and assigned.

The lowest level of a work breakdown structure, small enough to estimate cost and duration and to assign to a single accountable owner.

Uncontrolled, gradual expansion of project scope without corresponding adjustments to time, cost, or resources, usually caused by unmanaged change requests.

A formal group of stakeholders who review, evaluate, approve, or reject proposed changes to the project baseline and communicate decisions to affected parties.

A formal document proposing modification to a project component such as scope, schedule, cost, or quality, which must be logged and dispositioned.

An approved, frozen version of scope, schedule, or cost used as a reference point for measuring and reporting project performance against plan.

A living document identifying each stakeholder, their role, interests, influence, and communication needs, used to plan engagement throughout the project life cycle.

A plan defining who receives what information, in what format, how often, and through which channels, plus escalation paths for project issues.

A record of open problems, concerns, and disputes affecting the project, including owner, status, and resolution target dates for tracking and escalation.

A tool listing identified risks with their probability, impact, score, owner, and planned response, reviewed and updated throughout the project.

A planned action to address an identified risk, such as avoiding, mitigating, transferring, accepting, or exploiting it, with an assigned owner.

Time or money set aside in the approved baseline to cover known risks that have been identified and analyzed, controlled by the project manager.

Budget held outside the cost baseline for unanticipated work within project scope, released only through formal approval, typically by the sponsor.

The approved, time-phased project budget excluding management reserve, against which actual expenditures and cost performance are measured and reported.

A technique comparing planned value, earned value, and actual cost to measure schedule and cost performance and forecast final project outcomes.

A scheduling technique identifying the longest dependent sequence of activities, which determines the shortest possible project duration and has zero total float.

The amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the project completion date, calculated as late start minus early start.

A technique to shorten project duration without reducing scope, either by overlapping activities (fast tracking) or adding resources (crashing).

A horizontal bar chart displaying scheduled activities against a calendar timeline, showing durations, dependencies, and progress at a glance.

A significant point or event in the project with zero duration, used to mark completion of a phase, deliverable, or contractual obligation.

A formal review checkpoint at the end of a project phase where stakeholders decide whether to proceed, pause, or terminate the work.

Documented knowledge from project experience, capturing what worked and what did not, so future teams can repeat successes and avoid repeated mistakes.

The final project process of verifying deliverable acceptance, releasing resources, settling contracts, archiving records, and obtaining formal sign-off.

A record of minor incomplete or defective items identified during inspection that must be corrected before final acceptance of the work.

The planned, systematic activities that ensure project processes are being followed correctly so that deliverables meet defined quality requirements.

The process of monitoring and measuring specific deliverable results against quality standards and recording findings to verify acceptance.

The measurable conditions a deliverable must satisfy to be approved by the customer or sponsor, agreed before work begins.

A responsibility chart showing, for each task, who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed, clarifying roles and preventing ownership gaps.

The process of acquiring goods or services from outside vendors, including planning, soliciting, selecting, contracting, and administering supplier agreements.

A formal solicitation document describing project requirements and asking prospective vendors to submit detailed technical and pricing proposals.

A document describing the work to be performed under a contract, including deliverables, schedule, standards, and acceptance terms.

A contract clause or document defining measurable performance levels a vendor must meet, such as response times, uptime, and remedies for shortfalls.

A scheduling technique that adjusts start and finish dates to resolve resource overallocation, often extending the project duration beyond the original plan.

The interdependent trade-off among scope, time, and cost, where changing one element typically requires adjusting at least one of the others.

The sequence of phases a project passes through from initiation to closure, with each phase producing defined outputs and requiring approval to proceed.