PMN key terms

A documented justification for starting a project, setting out the expected benefits, costs, risks, and strategic fit, and used to decide whether the investment should be approved and later continued.

A short document that formally authorizes the project, names the project manager, and records high-level objectives, scope boundaries, key stakeholders, and initial constraints before detailed planning begins.

A living record of the people and groups affected by or able to influence the project, capturing their interests, influence, expectations, and how they will be engaged.

A stakeholder analysis tool that plots people by how much authority they hold and how much the outcome matters to them, guiding how closely each group should be managed and informed.

A plan describing how each stakeholder group will be communicated with and involved, including the approach, frequency, channels, and the person responsible for the relationship.

A narrative description of what the project will deliver and what it explicitly will not, including acceptance criteria and key deliverables, forming the baseline for later change control.

A hierarchical decomposition of the total project scope into progressively smaller deliverable-oriented components, ending at work packages that can be estimated, scheduled, and assigned.

The lowest level of a work breakdown structure, small enough to be reliably estimated and assigned to one owner, and typically the unit used for scheduling and cost control.

The uncontrolled expansion of project scope through small, unapproved additions, which erodes schedule and budget without any corresponding adjustment to the baseline.

A designated group with authority to review, approve, reject, or defer change requests, ensuring that scope, schedule, and cost impacts are assessed before the baseline is altered.

An approved, frozen version of scope, schedule, or cost against which actual performance is measured and reported, and which can only be changed through formal change control.

The longest sequence of dependent activities through the schedule, which determines the shortest possible project duration; any delay on this path delays the whole project.

The amount of time an activity can slip without delaying the project finish date or violating a constraint; activities on the critical path have zero float.

A graphical representation of activity dependencies showing the sequence in which work must be performed, used to calculate the critical path and float.

The estimated calendar time needed to complete an activity given its resources and productivity, used as an input to schedule development and to forecasting.

A significant point or event in the project with zero duration, used to mark completion of a key deliverable or a decision gate and to communicate progress to sponsors.

A top-down estimating technique that uses the actual cost or duration of similar past projects, adjusted for known differences, to produce a quick but less precise estimate.

An estimating technique that applies a statistical relationship between historical data and a measurable variable, such as cost per unit, to calculate cost or duration for the current work.

An estimating technique that builds the total cost or duration from detailed estimates for each work package or activity, giving high accuracy at the cost of more effort.

Money or time set aside to cover known risks that have been identified and analyzed, held by the project manager and released as those risks actually occur.

An amount of budget or time held outside the project baseline for unforeseen work within the project scope, released only with sponsor or senior management approval.

A performance measure that converts completed work into its budgeted value, allowing schedule and cost performance to be compared objectively against the baseline at any point.

The difference between the budgeted value of work performed and the actual cost incurred; a negative figure indicates spending more than planned for the work completed.

The difference between the budgeted value of work performed and the budgeted value of work scheduled; a negative figure indicates the project is behind its planned progress.

The process-oriented activity of auditing and improving the processes used to build deliverables, aiming to prevent defects rather than detect them after the fact.

The product-oriented activity of inspecting and testing deliverables against requirements, identifying defects, and verifying that outputs meet the agreed acceptance criteria.

The specific, testable conditions a deliverable must satisfy to be accepted by the customer or sponsor, agreed in advance and used to judge completion.

A record of identified risks, each with its probability, impact, owner, planned response, and current status, reviewed and updated throughout the project lifecycle.

A planned action for handling an identified risk, such as avoiding, transferring, mitigating, or accepting it, chosen according to its likelihood and impact on objectives.

A document defining what the project will buy or contract out, the type of contract to use, selection criteria, and how suppliers will be managed and evaluated.

A description of the work a supplier must perform, covering deliverables, standards, timelines, and acceptance terms, and forming the basis for the contract and its evaluation.

The commercial structure of an agreement, such as fixed price, cost reimbursable, or time and materials, which determines how risk and cost overruns are shared between buyer and seller.

A record of problems, conflicts, and open questions that have already occurred and need resolution, each with an owner, priority, and target resolution date.

Knowledge captured during and after the project about what worked, what failed, and why, recorded so future projects can repeat successes and avoid the same mistakes.

The formal process of confirming all deliverables are accepted, closing contracts, releasing resources, archiving records, and obtaining sign-off that the project is complete.

The process of tracking and confirming that the outcomes promised in the business case actually materialize after delivery, often measured well beyond project closure.

A decision point at the end of a project phase where senior stakeholders review progress and benefits against criteria and decide whether to continue, pause, or stop the work.

The framework of authority, decision rights, reporting lines, and oversight bodies that determines how a project is directed, controlled, and held accountable to the organization.

An organizational structure grouped by specialty in which project staff report to functional managers, so the project manager has limited authority and coordinates across departments.

A structure in which staff report both to a functional manager and to a project manager, creating shared authority that can be weak, balanced, or strong depending on relative power.