Project management

Terms related to project management, including definitions about project management methodologies and tools.
  • The Phoenix Project - The Phoenix Project is a best-selling novel about DevOps.
  • time management - Time management is the coordination of tasks and activities to maximize the effectiveness of an individual's efforts.
  • Top searches of 2008 - What were people searching the WhatIs.
  • Toyota Way - The Toyota Way is a comprehensive expression of the company's management philosophy, which is based on the two foundational pillars of Continuous Improvement, also known as kaizen, and Respect for People.
  • triage in IT - Triage is a term referring to the assignment of priority levels to tasks or individuals to determine the most effective order in which to deal with them.
  • triple constraint - The triple constraint is a model that describes the three most significant restrictions on any project: scope, schedule and cost.
  • two pizza rule - The two pizza rule is a guideline for limiting the number of attendees at a meeting.
  • Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze (Kurt Lewin Change Management Model) - Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze or Kurt Lewin's Change Management Model is a model to understand and manage organizational change.
  • unique selling point (USP) - A unique selling point (USP), also called a unique selling proposition, is a marketing statement that differentiates a product or brand from its competitors.
  • use case diagram (UML use case diagram) - A use case diagram is a way to summarize details of a system and the users within that system.
  • vision statement - A vision statement is an organization's declaration of its mid-term and long-term goals, stating what they want to become in the future.
  • VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) - VUCA is an acronym that stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity -- qualities that make a situation or condition difficult to analyze, respond to or plan for.
  • What is a center of excellence (CoE)? - A center of excellence (CoE) is a team of skilled knowledge workers whose mission is to provide the organization they work for with best practices around a particular area of interest.
  • What is a change agent (agent of change)? - A change agent, or agent of change, is someone who promotes change and enables it to happen within any group or organization.
  • What is a chief technology officer (CTO)? - A chief technology officer (CTO) is a high-level executive who is responsible for overseeing an organization's strategic use of IT.
  • What is a class diagram? - A class diagram is an illustration of the relationships and source code dependencies among classes in the Unified Modeling Language (UML).
  • What is a customer journey map? - A customer journey map is a visual depiction of the stages customers go through when interacting with a company -- from buying products online to accessing customer service on the phone to airing grievances on social media.
  • What is a functional specification document? - A functional specification is a formal document used to describe a product's intended capabilities, appearance and interactions with users in detail for software developers.
  • What is a PERT chart? And how to use it, with examples - A PERT chart, sometimes called a PERT diagram, is a project management tool used to schedule, organize and coordinate tasks in a project.
  • What is a PMO (project management office)? - A project management office (PMO) is a group, agency or department that defines and maintains the standards of project management for a company.
  • What is a product owner? - A product owner is a role on a Scrum team that is responsible for the project's outcome.
  • What is a project charter? Definition and examples - A project charter is a formal short document stating that a project exists and providing project managers with written authority to begin work.
  • What is a quality gate? - A quality gate is a milestone in an IT project that requires that predefined criteria be met before the project can proceed to the next phase.
  • What is a request for proposal (RFP)? - A request for proposal (RFP) is a document an organization uses when it's searching for a product or service to meet specific requirements.
  • What is a software requirements specification (SRS)? - A software requirements specification (SRS) is a comprehensive description of the intended purpose and environment for software under development.
  • What is a startup accelerator? - A startup accelerator, sometimes referred to as a seed accelerator, is a business program that supports early-stage, growth-driven companies through education, mentorship and financing.
  • What is a startup company? - A startup company is a newly formed business with particular momentum behind it based on perceived demand for its product or service.
  • What is a SWOT analysis? Definition, examples and how to - SWOT analysis is a framework for identifying and analyzing an organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
  • What is a think tank? - A think tank is an organization that gathers a group of interdisciplinary scholars to perform research around particular policies, issues or ideas.
  • What is an IT project manager? - An IT project manager is a professional charged with overseeing the process of planning, executing and delegating responsibilities around an organization's information technology (IT) pursuits and goals.
  • What is an organizational goal? - Organizational goals are strategic objectives that a company's management establishes to outline expected outcomes and guide employees' efforts toward the achievement of those outcomes.
  • What is business process management? A guide to BPM - Business process management (BPM) is a structured approach to improving the processes organizations use to get work done, serve their customers and generate business value.
  • What is continuous integration (CI)? - Continuous integration (CI) is a software development practice in which frequent and incremental changes are routinely added (integrated) to the complete codebase immediately after the changes and additions are tested and validated.
  • What is contract lifecycle management? - Contract lifecycle management (CLM) is a systematic approach to managing a business contract at each stage.
  • What is corporate performance management (CPM)? - Corporate performance management (CPM) encompasses the processes and methodologies used to align an organization's strategies and goals to its plans and actions as a business.
  • What is cost management? Definition, steps and benefits - Cost management is the process of planning and controlling a business budget.
  • What is demand planning and why is it important? - Demand planning is the process of forecasting the demand for a product or service so it can be produced and delivered more efficiently and to the satisfaction of customers.
  • What is DevOps? Meaning, methodology and guide - The word 'DevOps' is a combination of the terms 'development' and 'operations,' meant to represent a collaborative or shared approach to the tasks performed by a company's application development and IT operations teams.
  • What is Lean management? - Lean management is an approach to managing an organization that supports the concept of continuous improvement, a long-term approach to work that systematically seeks to achieve small, incremental changes in processes to improve efficiency and quality.
  • What is PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act)? - PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act, sometimes seen as Plan, Do, Check, Adjust) is a repetitive four-stage model for continuous improvement in business process management.
  • What is red teaming? - Red teaming is the practice of rigorously challenging plans, policies, systems and assumptions with an adversarial approach.
  • What is ROI? How to calculate return on investment - Return on investment (ROI) is a crucial financial metric investors and businesses use to evaluate an investment's efficiency or compare the efficiencies of several different investments.
  • What is root cause analysis? - Root cause analysis (RCA) is a method for understanding the underlying cause of an observed or experienced incident.
  • What is SAP Project System (SAP PS)? - SAP Project System is a module in the SAP ERP system that enables tightly controlled project management from planning to completion.
  • What is segregation of duties (SoD)? - Segregation of duties (SoD) is an internal control mechanism designed to prevent errors and fraud by ensuring at least two individuals are responsible for the separate parts of any task.
  • What is Six Sigma and how does it work? - Six Sigma is a business methodology for quality improvement that measures how many defects there are in a current process and seeks to systematically eliminate them.
  • What is systems development life cycle? - The systems development life cycle (SDLC) is a conceptual model used in project management that describes the stages involved in an information system development project -- from an initial feasibility study all the way through maintenance of the completed application.
  • What is team collaboration? - Team collaboration is a communication and project management approach that emphasizes teamwork, innovative thinking and equal participation to achieve objectives.
  • What is the gig economy? - A gig economy is a free market system in which temporary positions are common and organizations hire independent workers for short-term commitments.
  • What is the risk-reward ratio? - The risk-reward ratio, also known as a risk-return ratio, is a mathematical calculation investors use to measure the expected gains of a given investment against the risk of loss.
  • What is the triple bottom line (TBL)? - The triple bottom line (TBL) is a sustainability-based accounting framework that includes social, environmental and financial factors as bottom-line categories.
  • What is user acceptance testing (UAT)? - User acceptance testing (UAT), also called application testing or end-user testing, is a phase of software development in which the software is tested in the real world by its intended audience.
  • What is voice of the customer? A guide to VOC Strategy - Voice of the customer (VOC) is the component of customer experience (CX) that focuses on customer needs, wants, expectations and preferences.
  • What is white box testing? - White box testing is a software testing methodology in which the code structure is known and understood by the tester.
  • What is workflow orchestration? - Workflow orchestration is the process of coordinating and automating tasks across different systems to ensure they run within a defined workflow.
  • workflow - Workflow is the series of activities that are necessary to complete a task.
  • workflow management - Workflow management is the discipline of creating, documenting, monitoring and improving upon the series of steps, or workflow, that is required to complete a specific task.