PASL key terms

Any person or group with an interest in, or affected by, the outcome of a piece of work - including sponsors, customers, end users, regulators, and internal teams. Identifying them early shapes communication and decision-making.

The agreed boundary of what a piece of work will and will not cover, including deliverables, exclusions, and acceptance criteria. It anchors planning and provides the reference point for judging change requests.

A tangible or intangible output that a project or process is committed to produce and hand over, such as a report, a system, or a trained team. Deliverables are usually defined with acceptance criteria.

An approved, recorded version of a plan, schedule, or set of requirements that later performance is measured against. Changing a baseline needs formal approval, which prevents silent drift.

A factor treated as true for planning purposes without full confirmation. Assumptions should be recorded, owned, and tested, because if one proves false the plan built on it may fail.

A limit that cannot be removed by the team, such as a fixed budget, a legal deadline, or a mandated technology. Constraints narrow the range of acceptable solutions and shape trade-offs.

A significant, often zero-duration point in a schedule that marks completion of a phase or a key decision. Milestones give visible checkpoints without being work items themselves.

The sequence of stages a product, service, or initiative passes through from initiation to retirement. Naming the stages helps teams apply the right controls and reviews at the right time.

The activity of collecting, clarifying, and documenting what a solution must do and how well it must do it. Good gathering separates stated wants from underlying needs and confirms them with the people affected.

A structured comparison between the current state and a desired future state that identifies what is missing. The output usually lists specific gaps, their causes, and candidate actions.

A living log of identified risks, each with an owner, likelihood, impact, and planned response. It is reviewed regularly so that exposure stays visible and is managed rather than discovered late.

A method for tracing a problem back to the underlying conditions that produced it rather than stopping at the symptom. Common tools include the five whys and cause-and-effect diagrams.

A comparison of the expected costs of an option against its expected benefits, often expressed in money or as a ratio. It supports choosing between alternatives but depends heavily on the quality of estimates.

A hierarchical decomposition of total scope into progressively smaller, manageable pieces of work. Each lowest-level element can then be estimated, assigned, and tracked.

The longest sequence of dependent activities in a schedule, which determines the earliest possible finish date. Delay to any activity on that path delays the whole effort.

A tool that scores options against weighted criteria so choices reflect agreed importance rather than opinion. Scores should be revisited whenever the criteria or the supporting evidence change.

A small set of measures chosen to show whether an activity is achieving its intended outcome. Good indicators are specific, tied to a target, and reviewed on a defined cadence.

A documented commitment between a provider and a customer stating expected service levels, such as response times and availability, plus remedies when those levels are missed.

A formal process for requesting, assessing, approving, and recording changes to an approved plan or product. It protects quality by making changes deliberate and their effects understood.

Planned process-level activities intended to prevent defects from being introduced, such as standards, reviews, and training. It focuses on how work is done rather than inspecting the finished result.

Activities that inspect and test outputs against defined criteria to detect defects before delivery. It verifies the result and feeds any problems found back for correction.

The defined path for raising an issue to someone with more authority or resources when it cannot be resolved at the current level. Clear triggers and timeframes keep escalation from becoming blame.

Estimating the people, systems, or supply needed to meet expected demand over a period, then comparing that with what is available. It highlights shortfalls before they cause missed commitments.

A written, step-by-step description of how a routine task is performed so that results stay consistent and repeatable. Procedures are version-controlled and updated whenever the underlying process changes.

The set of roles, decision rights, and oversight mechanisms that determine who may approve what and how performance is reported. Good governance makes decisions traceable without slowing routine work.

Meeting the obligations imposed by laws, regulations, contracts, or internal policies. Compliance work typically includes identifying obligations, evidencing controls, and responding to findings.

A chronological record of who did what and when in a system or process, kept so activity can be reconstructed and verified. It is central to investigations, external audits, and dispute resolution.

An action taken in advance to reduce the likelihood or the impact of a risk. Mitigation differs from a contingency, which is invoked only if the risk actually occurs.

An ongoing cycle of measuring performance, identifying small changes, testing them, and standardizing what works. The plan-do-check-act loop is a common structure for organizing this cycle.

Insights captured during or after an effort about what worked and what did not, recorded so future teams avoid repeating mistakes. Their value depends on storing them where people can find them.

The obligation of a named person to answer for an outcome and its results, even where others performed the work. It is paired with the authority and resources needed to act.

Comparing an organization's performance or practices against internal references, peers, or recognized standards. The aim is to set realistic improvement targets rather than to copy another organization blindly.

A change made to remove the cause of a detected problem so that it does not recur, as opposed to a quick fix of the symptom. Its effectiveness is verified after implementation.

The principle that information is disclosed only to those entitled to see it, usually enforced through access rules, classification, and handling procedures. It is one part of broader information protection.