GAQM PPM key terms

The use of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to direct work so that a temporary effort delivers agreed deliverables within scope, time, cost, and quality constraints.

A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result, with a defined start and finish, distinct from ongoing operations that repeat continuously.

A group of related projects and other work managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits that could not be realized if each project were managed separately.

A collection of projects, programs, and operational work grouped together to support strategic objectives, prioritized and governed as a single investment set rather than for shared deliverables.

An organizational unit that standardizes project practices, provides templates, tools, coaching, and reporting, and may hold varying authority over projects from advisory support to direct management.

The senior person who authorizes the project, champions it with executives, secures funding and resources, and accepts the final deliverables on behalf of the performing organization.

A document, issued by the sponsor, that formally authorizes the project and states its high-level scope, objectives, success criteria, key milestones, budget summary, and named project manager.

The interdependent trade-off among scope, schedule, and cost that determines quality; changing one dimension almost always forces adjustment in at least one of the others.

Any individual, group, or organization that can affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by the project, including customers, users, suppliers, regulators, and internal teams.

A project document listing identified stakeholders with their roles, contact details, requirements, expectations, influence, and interest, used to plan engagement and communication approaches.

A hierarchical decomposition of total project scope into progressively smaller deliverables, with the lowest levels representing work packages that can be estimated, scheduled, and assigned.

The lowest-level element of a work breakdown structure, small enough to be estimated and controlled reliably, from which activities, durations, and resource needs are derived.

Any unique, verifiable product, service, or result produced to complete a process, phase, or project, capable of being validated and accepted by a customer or sponsor.

A significant point or event in the project with zero duration, used to mark completion of a major deliverable, phase gate, or approval and to track progress at a summary level.

The sequence of phases a project passes through from initiation to closure, whose names, number, and control gates are determined by the organization and the nature of the product.

A review point at the end of a project phase where deliverables and business case assumptions are assessed and a decision is made to continue, revise, pause, or terminate the work.

A plan-driven approach in which scope, schedule, and cost are defined in detail early and changes are controlled formally, suited to stable requirements and regulated deliverables.

An iterative, incremental approach that delivers work in short cycles, welcomes requirement change, and relies on collaboration, working product, and frequent feedback rather than upfront detail.

A fixed-length iteration, typically one to four weeks, during which a self-organizing team builds and tests a potentially releasable increment of product against an agreed sprint goal.

A prioritized, evolving list of features, requirements, fixes, and improvements that defines what the product should contain, owned and ordered by the product owner.

A short, time-boxed daily team meeting where members synchronize work, surface impediments, and plan the next day, typically covering progress, upcoming work, and blockers.

The approved combination of the project scope statement, work breakdown structure, and WBS dictionary, used to measure scope performance and evaluate change requests.

A document describing the project's product scope, deliverables, acceptance criteria, exclusions, assumptions, and constraints, forming the basis for detailed planning and change evaluation.

Uncontrolled expansion of project scope through small, unapproved additions that are absorbed without adjusting time, cost, or resources, eroding the baseline and margins.

The process of formally accepting completed deliverables with the customer or sponsor, confirming that each meets documented acceptance criteria before payment or phase closure.

A table linking each requirement to its source, related WBS elements, test cases, and verification status, ensuring all requirements are delivered and nothing unauthorized is added.

An approved, frozen version of a plan against which actual performance is compared; scope, schedule, and cost baselines can only change through formal integrated change control.

A formal process for requesting, assessing, approving, or rejecting changes to baselines, including impact analysis on scope, schedule, cost, risk, and quality, plus communication of decisions.

A group of stakeholders authorized to review change requests, weigh their impacts, and approve, defer, or reject them, providing consistent governance over baseline modifications.

A documented list of all schedule activities needed to produce the work packages, with activity identifiers and descriptions of the work so the team knows what to perform.

A scheduling technique that identifies the longest sequence of dependent activities through the network, whose total duration sets the shortest possible project completion time.

The amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying a successor or the project finish date; critical path activities have zero total float.

A graphical representation of schedule activities and their logical dependencies, used to calculate early and late dates, float, and the critical path.

A horizontal bar chart showing activities against a calendar timeline, with bars for duration and often markers for milestones, dependencies, and progress to date.

A technique to shorten the schedule without reducing scope, typically by crashing (adding resources at extra cost) or fast-tracking (overlapping activities that were sequential).

The approved version of the project schedule, including start and finish dates for activities and milestones, used to compare actual progress and forecast delays.

The approved, time-phased budget excluding management reserves, against which actual costs are measured and variance is analyzed during project execution.

A performance measurement technique combining scope, schedule, and cost data to compute variances and indices that forecast cost and schedule outcomes objectively.

Earned value minus planned value; a negative result indicates work is behind the planned schedule, while a positive result indicates work is ahead.

Earned value minus actual cost; a negative result means spending exceeds the value of work performed, while a positive result means the project is under budget.

Earned value divided by planned value; a ratio below one shows less work completed than planned for the time elapsed, and above one shows ahead-of-schedule performance.

Earned value divided by actual cost; a ratio below one signals cost inefficiency, and the reciprocal of CPI estimates the final cost per unit of budgeted work.

Budget or time set aside for identified risks accepted by the project team, included in the cost baseline and released only through approved change or risk response decisions.

Funds held by senior management outside the cost baseline for unforeseen work within project scope, requiring sponsor approval before they can be applied to the project.

A living document recording each identified risk with its cause, potential effect, probability, impact rating, owner, planned response, and current status through the project.

A planned action to address an identified risk, such as avoiding, transferring, mitigating, or accepting a threat, or exploiting, sharing, enhancing, or accepting an opportunity.

A record of problems or concerns that have occurred or are certain to occur, with owner, description, priority, and resolution status, tracked until closed.

The process-oriented activities that audit and improve the processes used to build deliverables, aiming to prevent defects rather than detect them after creation.

The product-oriented activities that inspect and test deliverables against specifications, measuring results and identifying defects so they can be corrected or prevented.

Documented insights about what worked well and what should change, captured during and after the project and stored for reuse by future teams.

The final process of confirming all deliverables are accepted, releasing team and resources, closing contracts and accounts, archiving records, and measuring final performance.

The process of ensuring that the outcomes and value expected from a project or program are actually achieved and sustained after deliverables are handed over.

The framework of decision rights, policies, roles, and oversight that determines who approves funding, baselines, and changes, and how project performance is reported.

A plan specifying who needs what information, in what format, at what frequency, and through which channel, along with owners and escalation paths for project communication.