EXIN Dynamic Project Management Method Project Manager key terms

A lightweight, principle-driven approach to running projects that emphasizes short cycles, visible progress, and continuous adjustment instead of a single fixed plan made at the start.

Guiding a project by a small set of shared principles rather than by detailed prescribed procedures, so teams can choose fitting practices while staying aligned on intent.

The idea that behaviors, values, and attitudes shape project success more than any single tool or template; methods are adapted to the people and context, not the reverse.

A recurring cycle in which the team reviews what it produced and how it worked, then changes plans, process, or priorities based on what the review revealed.

A fixed, short timebox in which a defined slice of work is planned, executed, and reviewed, producing a usable increment and fresh information for the next cycle.

A hard limit on the duration of an activity or cycle; scope is adjusted to fit the time rather than the deadline being extended to fit the scope.

The completed, potentially usable output produced by an iteration. Each increment adds value on its own and is the concrete object that stakeholders inspect.

A shared checklist stating what must be true before work is considered complete, preventing ambiguity about quality and readiness for delivery.

The specific, testable conditions a single deliverable must satisfy to be accepted by the requester; they describe expected behavior, not the solution's design.

A short statement of a need written from the perspective of the person who benefits from it, capturing who wants what and why, and deferring detail until it is needed.

An ordered, evolving list of everything that might be built or changed, with the most valuable and best-understood items at the top for near-term delivery.

The ongoing activity of clarifying, splitting, estimating, and reordering backlog items so the top of the list is ready to be worked on next.

Deciding the order in which work is done based on value, risk, cost, and dependency, so limited capacity is spent on the most useful outcomes first.

A prioritization scheme that sorts requirements into Must have, Should have, Could have, and Will not have this time, making trade-offs explicit when time or capacity is tight.

The smallest version of a solution that delivers real value and allows genuine feedback from users, used to test assumptions before investing further.

A structured path by which information about results returns to the team quickly enough to influence the next decision, shortening the distance between action and learning.

Identifying the people affected by or interested in the project and deliberately involving them at the right moments so decisions reflect their needs and support.

A visual analysis that positions stakeholders by influence and interest, helping the project manager choose who to inform, consult, involve, or merely monitor.

An agreed schedule and set of channels defining what information goes to which audience, in what form, and how often, reducing surprises and duplicated messages.

A prominently displayed, self-updating visual such as a task board or burn chart that lets anyone passing by understand project status without asking for a report.

A physical or digital board with columns representing workflow stages, on which cards move from left to right as work progresses, exposing bottlenecks and work in progress.

A flow-based method that visualizes work on a board, limits how much is in progress at once, and manages throughput continuously rather than in fixed iterations.

A cap on how many items may sit in a workflow stage at the same time, forcing finishing over starting and revealing where the process is constrained.

The stage in a workflow with the least capacity, which determines the pace of the whole; adding capacity elsewhere does not increase overall throughput.

The principle that any system's output is limited by one binding constraint at a time, so improvement effort should identify and relieve that constraint before optimizing elsewhere.

The elapsed time from when work on an item starts to when it is finished, used to forecast delivery and to detect the effect of process changes.

The total elapsed time from when a request is made to when it is delivered, including waiting before work begins; it reflects the experience of the requester.

The number of items completed per unit of time; a flow measure used with cycle time to predict how much work can realistically be delivered by a given date.

A line graph showing remaining work over time against an ideal trend, making the pace of progress and the likelihood of meeting a target visible at a glance.

Producing a rough, honest forecast of the effort or size of work using relative comparison or historical data, accepting uncertainty rather than pretending to precision.

A relative unit for sizing work that combines effort, complexity, and uncertainty; only the ratios between estimates matter, not the absolute number.

A group estimation technique in which participants reveal size cards simultaneously and discuss differences, producing a shared estimate quickly and surfacing hidden assumptions.

The average amount of work a team completes per iteration, used as a planning input for how much to take on next, never as a target to be inflated.

A team that decides for itself how to divide and sequence work within agreed boundaries, rather than waiting for a manager to assign each task.

A group holding between them all the skills needed to take work from idea to delivered result, reducing handoffs and the waiting they cause.

A leadership stance in which the project manager's job is to remove obstacles, protect focus, and create conditions for the team to succeed, rather than to command tasks.

Any obstacle blocking the team's progress that it cannot remove on its own; surfacing and clearing impediments is a core responsibility of the project manager.

A facilitated review at the end of a cycle where the team examines how it worked together and commits to a small number of concrete improvements for the next cycle.

The habit of making many small, deliberate changes to process and product over time, based on evidence, instead of relying on occasional large corrective programs.

An uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, affects project objectives; managed by identifying, assessing likelihood and impact, and choosing a response in advance.

A living list of identified risks with their owners, assessments, and planned responses, reviewed regularly so it informs decisions rather than sitting in a drawer.

A chosen action for a specific risk, such as avoiding, reducing, transferring, or accepting it, with a named owner and a trigger for when to act.

Something believed to be true for planning purposes without proof; it should be written down and tested early, because a wrong assumption becomes a risk.

The trade-off between delivering an agreed set of features and hitting an agreed deadline; with fixed time and people, scope must flex, and this must be agreed explicitly.

Planning near-term work in detail while leaving later work at a high level until more is known, so plans stay useful instead of becoming fiction.

A short document authorizing the project, naming its purpose, sponsor, key objectives, boundaries, and success measures, and giving the project manager authority to proceed.

The justification for investing in the project, covering expected benefits, costs, risks, and alternatives, and revisited as evidence accumulates.

The senior person who funds and champions the project, makes escalated decisions, and removes organizational obstacles beyond the project manager's authority.

Agreed, measurable statements of what a successful outcome looks like, covering both delivered value and how the work was carried out, set before work begins.

The standards a deliverable must meet, such as performance, usability, or reliability thresholds, which guide design decisions and acceptance testing.

The gradual, unmanaged addition of requirements without adjusting time, cost, or priorities, which erodes predictability and dilutes value.

A lightweight, agreed way to evaluate and decide on changes to scope or requirements, ensuring decisions are deliberate and their consequences understood.

A brief daily team meeting to synchronize work, surface blockers, and adjust the day's plan, deliberately kept short and focused on coordination rather than reporting upward.

Designing and guiding group meetings so participants reach decisions and shared understanding efficiently, using clear purpose, structure, and neutral steering.

The contrast between leading by enabling the team to decide and act, and leading by issuing instructions and checking compliance; the method favors the enabling stance.

The point of the project: producing outcomes the organization or user actually benefits from, measured earlier and more often than a single end-of-project handover.

An agreed checklist confirming a backlog item is clear, testable, and small enough to start, preventing work from beginning on half-understood requirements.