Project Management Glossary

As I wanted to discuss on a common basis with all readers, I thought it would be good to dress up a glossary on the most utilized terms. This focus on IT Project Management.

• Agile Project Management: Agile methods applied to Project management. It promotes short process that encourages development iterations, teamwork, stakeholder involvement, short term objectives, effective metrics and controls.
• Baseline Package: approved configuration item, for example project plan, schedule, budget and defined scope on a project.
• Business Case/Statement of work: document recording the justification for starting a project. This can briefly describes benefits, first costs estimation, etc.
• Change Control: practice of identifying, documenting and approving changes within an organization.
• Communication Plan: how to tell people your project will change the world?
• Critical Path: sequence of activities that must be completed on time for the entire project to be completed on schedule, longest duration path through project plan.
• Deliverable: object produced through project execution.
• Dependency: any event that is dependent on the outcome of the project or the project will depend on.
• Milestone: key event during the project life (e.g. Go Live Date).
• Phase: project state depending on the PLC (Project Life Cycle) in place (e.g. Initiation, Analysis, Design, Active, Close-out).
• Production: a system is in production once it is lived for its end users (basically after Go-Live date).
• Project Change Request: once the baseline package is approved, any change on it though the project life shall follow a proper workflow and be reviewed by appropriate people. A PCR (Project Change Request) shall be raised and sent for sign-off. 
• Project Plan: formal and approved document used to guide project execution and control.
• Requirements Specification: complete description of the behavior of the system to be developed.
• Resources: everything needed to complete the project (in particular people and money).
• Risk Management: project management subset consisting on risk identification, risk qualification, risk response development and control to respond to project risks.
• Scope: the agreed description on what the project should achieve and what should be its outcome.
• Sponsor: person who has authority on the project and provides funding.
• Stakeholders: person interests in the project and its outcome.
• User Requirements Document: document that specifies the requirements the user expects from software to be constructed.
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): hierarchical tree structure of deliverables and tasks that need to be performed to complete a project.

Hope this could help.

Thibaut