A pdf of the complete Praxis Comparative Glossary can be downloaded here.
From Earliest finish to Escalation
The earliest time an activity can finish. Calculated during the forward pass of critical path analysis. | |
The earliest time an activity can start. Calculated during the forward pass of critical path analysis. | |
Customers who buy or adopt the first version of a product. Early adopters typically like innovative products and provide early feedback on product quality. | |
The earliest time an event can occur. Calculated during the forward pass of critical path analysis. | |
The earned value of work done expressed in effort hours instead of money. | |
| More: | The value of the work done according to the baseline cost, i.e. if all the work done so far had been completed at the original rates and costs, this is the amount it would have cost. Also referred to as budget cost of work performed (BCWP). |
The calculations performed as part of earned value management. | |
| More: | Assessing the progress of activities through ‘time spent so far’ or ‘money spent so far’ is usually misleading. Earned value calculations assess the value of work that has been done at a particular point and express that in proportion to the value of what should have been done by that point. The key advantages of earned value management are that it gives an accurate view of how work is progressing and enables this to be used in estimates of the eventual cost and duration of the project. |
A collective term used by the APM PSMC for various techniques used to measure the progress of an activity, e.g. level of effort, earning rules and apportioned effort. | |
Earning rules relate to the way progress is credited to an activity in earned value management. The three most common rules are:
Other rules can be applied such as 20/80. The advantage of this is that some value is credited at the start to register that an activity is in progress but the achievement of full value is weighted towards completion. | |
An activity whose duration can be varied according to the resources available to do it. For example if an effort driven activity was defined as needing 12 effort days it would be scheduled for a 6 day duration if two resources were available and 4 days if three resources were available. | |
An estimate of the remaining effort required to complete an activity as estimated at the progress date. | |
The calendar time between two points as distinct from the working time. In a normal five day working week there are seven elapsed days. | |
This process deals with what Praxis calls change management and the benefits realisation process. Equivalent to Realizing the benefits in the 4th Ed. | |
Business and operational change that is managed through incremental, iterative and evolutionary means because it cannot be foreseen at the outset of the project or programme. | |
An alternative name for line of balance. | |
A term used in MSP 4th Ed. to describe a programme that absorbs one or more existing projects to create a programme. | |
The MSP 4th Ed. term for the ultimate objectives of a programme. Also referred to as the to-be state. In MSP 5th Ed. this is the target operating model. | |
A phrase originally coined in the context of education but consistent with the agile approach to projects where individual functionality is developed first and the overall architecture emerges as the product develops. | |
A PRINCE2 report prepared by the project manager and submitted to the project board. It confirms the handover of all project deliverables. The report should also include an updated business case and an assessment of the project's performance against the original project initiation documentation. | |
In PRINCE2, the project manager and project board will review the end stage report in order to decide whether or not to proceed with the next stage. | |
A PRINCE2 report prepared by the project manager at the end of each project stage. The report is submitted to the project board and contains an assessment of the project's performance during the stage and the project's status on completion of the stage. | |
One of the four possible opportunity responses. | |
MSP 5th Ed. uses this to refer to the organisational capability to be flexible and responsive to its environment. It states that programme management enables this high level agility that may also be referred to as ‘corporate agility’ or ‘organisational agility’. | |
A term used in the PMBoK® guide used for factors that are not under the control of the management team but may influence or constrain the management of a project, programme or portfolio. | |
A PMO that explicitly covers all projects, programmes and portfolios within an enterprise. | |
| More: | The way a project, programme or portfolio is governed and managed will depend upon many different external factors referred to in Praxis as the environment. These must be understood by the P3 sponsor and manager at the outset so that the work is managed in an appropriate manner. |
A large user story that will be broken down into several more specific user stories when possible. PRINCE2 Agile defines an epic as a high-level definition of a requirement that has not been sufficiently refined or understood yet. | |
An activity from the PRINCE2 Controlling a Stage (CS) process that is invoked if the stage (or project) is forecast to exceed the delivery tolerances set by the project board. In this case the project manager issues an exception report for the project board to consider. In Praxis this eventuality is encompassed within the corrective action activity in the delivery process. Neither the PMBoK® guide nor ISO21500 have an equivalent exception process. This type of escalation is implicit within the many references to change requests that are submitted to the Perform Integrated Change Control process. | |
The exercise of raising an issue with a higher level of management. |
