PMP GLOSSARY (from R to T )

RACI. A common type of responsibility assignment matrix that uses responsible, accountable, consult, and inform statuses to define the involvement of stakeholders in project activities.

Records Management System. A specific set of processes, related control functions, and tools that are consolidated and combined to record and retain information about the project.

Regression Analysis. An analytic technique where a series of input variables are examined in relation to their corresponding output results in order to develop a mathematical or statistical relationship.

Regulation. Requirements imposed by a governmental body. These requirements can establish product, process, or service characteristics, including applicable administrative provisions that have government-mandated compliance.

Reporting Systems. Facilities, processes, and procedures used to generate or consolidate reports from one or more information management systems and facilitate report distribution to the project stakeholders.

Request for Information (RFI). A type of procurement document whereby the buyer requests a potential seller to provide various pieces of information related to a product or service or seller capability.

Request for Proposal (RFP). A type of procurement document used to request proposals from prospective sellers of products or services. In some application areas, it may have a narrower or more specific meaning.

Request for Quotation (RFQ). A type of procurement document used to request price quotations from prospective sellers of common or standard products or services. Sometimes used in place of request for proposal and, in some application areas, it may have a narrower or more specific meaning.

Requested Change. A formally documented change request that is submitted for approval to the integrated change control process.

Requirement. A condition or capability that is required to be present in a product, service, or result to satisfy a contract or other formally imposed specification.

Requirements Documentation. A description of how individual requirements meet the business need for the project.

Requirements Management Plan. A component of the project or program management plan that describes how requirements will be analyzed, documented, and managed.

Requirements Traceability Matrix. A grid that links product requirements from their origin to the deliverables that satisfy them.

Reserve. A provision in the project management plan to mitigate cost and/or schedule risk. Often used with a modifier (e.g., management reserve, contingency reserve) to provide further detail on what types of risk are meant to be mitigated.

Reserve Analysis. An analytical technique to determine the essential features and relationships of components in the project management plan to establish a reserve for the schedule duration, budget, estimated cost, or funds for a project.

Residual Risk. A risk that remains after risk responses have been implemented.

Resource. Skilled human resources (specific disciplines either individually or in crews or teams), equipment, services, supplies, commodities, material, budgets, or funds.

Resource Breakdown Structure. A hierarchical representation of resources by category and type.

Resource Calendar. A calendar that identifies the working days and shifts on which each specific resource is available.

Resource Histogram. A bar chart showing the amount of time that a resource is scheduled to work over a series of time periods. Resource availability may be depicted as a line for comparison purposes. Contrasting bars may show actual amounts of resources used as the project progresses.

Resource Leveling. A technique in which start and finish dates are adjusted based on resource constraints with the goal of balancing demand for resources with the available supply.

Resource Optimization Techniques. A technique that is used to adjust the start and finish dates of activities that adjust planned resource use to be equal to or less than resource availability.

Resource Smoothing. A technique which adjusts the activities of a schedule model such that the requirement for resources on the project do not exceed certain predefined resource limits.

Responsibility. An assignment that can be delegated within a project management plan such that the assigned resource incurs a duty to perform the requirements of the assignment.

Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM). A grid that shows the project resources assigned to each work package.

Result. An output from performing project management processes and activities. Results include outcomes (e.g., integrated systems, revised process, restructured organization, tests, trained personnel, etc.) and documents (e.g., policies, plans, studies, procedures, specifications, reports, etc.). Contrast with product. See also deliverable.

Rework. Action taken to bring a defective or nonconforming component into compliance with requirements or specifications.

Risk. An uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on one or more project objectives.

Risk Acceptance. A risk response strategy whereby the project team decides to acknowledge the risk and not take any action unless the risk occurs.

Risk Appetite. The degree of uncertainty an entity is willing to take on, in anticipation of a reward.

Risk Audits. Examination and documentation of the effectiveness of risk responses in dealing with identified risks and their root causes, as well as the effectiveness of the risk management process.

Risk Avoidance. A risk response strategy whereby the project team acts to eliminate the threat or protect the project from its impact.

Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS). A hierarchical representation of risks according to their risk categories.

Risk Categorization. Organization by sources of risk (e.g., using the RBS), the area of the project affected (e.g., using the WBS), or other useful category (e.g., project phase) to determine the areas of the project most exposed to the effects of uncertainty.

Risk Category. A group of potential causes of risk.

Risk Data Quality Assessment. Technique to evaluate the degree to which the data about risks is useful for risk management.

Risk Management Plan. A component of the project, program, or portfolio management plan that describes how risk management activities will be structured and performed.

Risk Mitigation. A risk response strategy whereby the project team acts to reduce the probability of occurrence or impact of a risk.

Risk Reassessment. Risk reassessment is the identification of new risks, reassessment of current risks, and the closing of risks that are outdated.

Risk Register. A document in which the results of risk analysis and risk response planning are recorded.

Risk Threshold. Measure of the level of uncertainty or the level of impact at which a stakeholder may have a specific interest. Below that risk threshold, the organization will accept the risk. Above that risk threshold, the organization will not tolerate the risk.

Risk Tolerance. The degree, amount, or volume of risk that an organization or individual will withstand.

Risk Transference. A risk response strategy whereby the project team shifts the impact of a threat to a third party, together with ownership of the response.

Risk Urgency Assessment. Review and determination of the timing of actions that may need to occur sooner than other risk items.

Role. A defined function to be performed by a project team member, such as testing, filing, inspecting, or coding.

Rolling Wave Planning. An iterative planning technique in which the work to be accomplished in the near term is planned in detail, while the work in the future is planned at a higher level.

 

Root Cause Analysis. An analytical technique used to determine the basic underlying reason that causes a variance or a defect or a risk. A root cause may underlie more than one variance or defect or risk.

Scatter Diagram. A correlation chart that uses a regression line to explain or to predict how the change in an independent variable will change a dependent variable.

Schedule. See project schedule and see also schedule model.

Schedule Baseline. The approved version of a schedule model that can be changed only through formal change control procedures and is used as a basis for comparison to actual results.

Schedule Compression. Techniques used to shorten the schedule duration without reducing the project scope.

Schedule Data. The collection of information for describing and controlling the schedule.

Schedule Forecasts. Estimates or predictions of conditions and events in the project’s future based on information and knowledge available at the time the schedule is calculated.

Schedule Management Plan. A component of the project management plan that establishes the criteria and the activities for developing, monitoring, and controlling the schedule.

Schedule Model. A representation of the plan for executing the project’s activities including durations, dependencies, and other planning information, used to produce a project schedule along with other scheduling artifacts.

Schedule Network Analysis. The technique of identifying early and late start dates, as well as early and late finish dates, for the uncompleted portions of project schedule activities. See also backward pass, critical path method, critical chain method, and resource leveling.

Schedule Network Templates. A set of activities and relationships that have been established that can be used repeatedly for a particular application area or an aspect of the project where a prescribed sequence is desired.

Schedule Performance Index (SPI). A measure of schedule efficiency expressed as the ratio of earned value to planned value.

Schedule Variance (SV). A measure of schedule performance expressed as the difference between the earned value and the planned value.

Scheduling Tool. A tool that provides schedule component names, definitions, structural relationships, and formats that support the application of a scheduling method.

Scope. The sum of the products, services, and results to be provided as a project. See also project scope and product scope.

Scope Baseline. The approved version of a scope statement, work breakdown structure (WBS), and its associated WBS dictionary, that can be changed only through formal change control procedures and is used as a basis for comparison.

Scope Change. Any change to the project scope. A scope change almost always requires an adjustment to the project cost or schedule.

Scope Creep. The uncontrolled expansion to product or project scope without adjustments to time, cost, and resources.

Scope Management Plan. A component of the project or program management plan that describes how the scope will be defined, developed, monitored, controlled, and verified.

Secondary Risk. A risk that arises as a direct result of implementing a risk response.

Selected Sellers. The sellers which have been selected to provide a contracted set of services or products.

Seller. A provider or supplier of products, services, or results to an organization.

Seller Proposals. Formal responses from sellers to a request for proposal or other procurement document specifying the price, commercial terms of sale, and technical specifications or capabilities the seller will do for the requesting organization that, if accepted, would bind the seller to perform the resulting agreement.

Sensitivity Analysis. A quantitative risk analysis and modeling technique used to help determine which risks have the most potential impact on the project. It examines the extent to which the uncertainty of each project element affects the objective being examined when all other uncertain elements are held at their baseline values. The typical display of results is in the form of a tornado diagram.

Sequence Activities. The process of identifying and documenting relationships among the project activities.

Seven Basic Quality Tools. A standard toolkit used by quality management professionals who are responsible for planning, monitoring, and controlling the issues related to quality in an organization.

Simulation. A simulation uses a project model that translates the uncertainties specified at a detailed level into their potential impact on objectives that are expressed at the level of the total project. Project simulations use computer models and estimates of risk, usually expressed as a probability distribution of possible costs or durations at a detailed work level, and are typically performed using Monte Carlo analysis.

Soft Logic. See discretionary dependency.

Source Selection Criteria. A set of attributes desired by the buyer which a seller is required to meet or exceed to be selected for a contract.

Specification. A document that specifies, in a complete, precise, verifiable manner, the requirements, design, behavior, or other characteristics of a system, component, product, result, or service and the procedures for determining whether these provisions have been satisfied. Examples are: requirement specification, design specification, product specification, and test specification.

Specification Limits. The area, on either side of the centerline, or mean, of data plotted on a control chart that meets the customer’s requirements for a product or service. This area may be greater than or less than the area defined by the control limits. See also control limits.

Sponsor. A person or group who provides resources and support for the project, program, or portfolio and is accountable for enabling success.

Sponsoring Organization. The entity responsible for providing the project’s sponsor and a conduit for project funding or other project resources.

Staffing Management Plan. A component of the human resource plan that describes when and how project team members will be acquired and how long they will be needed.

Stakeholder. An individual, group, or organization who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project.

Stakeholder Analysis. A technique of systematically gathering and analyzing quantitative and qualitative information to determine whose interests should be taken into account throughout the project.

Stakeholder Management Plan. The stakeholder management plan is a subsidiary plan of the project management plan that defines the processes, procedures, tools, and techniques to effectively engage stakeholders in project decisions and execution based on the analysis of their needs, interests, and potential impact.

Stakeholder Register. A project document including the identification, assessment, and classification of project stakeholders.

Standard. A document that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines, or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context.

Start Date. A point in time associated with a schedule activity’s start, usually qualified by one of the following: actual, planned, estimated, scheduled, early, late, target, baseline, or current.

Start-to-Finish (SF). A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot finish until a predecessor activity has started.

Start-to-Start (SS). A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot start until a predecessor activity has started.

Statement of Work (SOW). A narrative description of products, services, or results to be delivered by the project.

Statistical Sampling. Choosing part of a population of interest for inspection.

Subnetwork. A subdivision (fragment) of a project schedule network diagram, usually representing a subproject or a work package. Often used to illustrate or study some potential or proposed schedule condition, such as changes in preferential schedule logic or project scope.

Subproject. A smaller portion of the overall project created when a project is subdivided into more manageable components or pieces.

Successor Activity. A dependent activity that logically comes after another activity in a schedule.

Summary Activity. A group of related schedule activities aggregated and displayed as a single activity.

SWOT Analysis. Analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of an organization, project, or option.

Tailor. The act of carefully selecting process and related inputs and outputs contained within the PMBOK^® Guide to determine a subset of specific processes that will be included within a project’s overall management approach.

Team Members. See project team members.

Technique. A defined systematic procedure employed by a human resource to perform an activity to produce a product or result or deliver a service, and that may employ one or more tools.

Templates. A partially complete document in a predefined format that provides a defined structure for collecting, organizing, and presenting information and data.

Threat. A risk that would have a negative effect on one or more project objectives.

 

Three-Point Estimate. A technique used to estimate cost or duration by applying an average of optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely estimates when there is uncertainty with the individual activity estimates.

Threshold. A cost, time, quality, technical, or resource value used as a parameter, and which may be included in product specifications. Crossing the threshold should trigger some action, such as generating an exception report.

Time and Material Contract (T&M). A type of contract that is a hybrid contractual arrangement containing aspects of both cost-reimbursable and fixed-price contracts. Time and material contracts resemble cost-reimbursable type arrangements in that they have no definitive end, because the full value of the arrangement is not defined at the time of the award. Thus, time and material contracts can grow in contract value as if they were cost-reimbursable-type arrangements. Conversely, time and material arrangements can also resemble fixed-price arrangements. For example, the unit rates are preset by the buyer and seller, when both parties agree on the rates for the category of senior engineers.

Time-Scaled Schedule Network Diagram. Any project schedule network diagram drawn in such a way that the positioning and length of the schedule activity represents its duration. Essentially, it is a bar chart that includes schedule network logic.

To-Complete Performance Index (TCPI). A measure of the cost performance that is required to be achieved with the remaining resources in order to meet a specified management goal, expressed as the ratio of the cost to finish the outstanding work to the remaining budget.

Tolerance. The quantified description of acceptable variation for a quality requirement.

Tornado Diagram. A special type of bar chart used in sensitivity analysis for comparing the relative importance of the variables.

Tool. Something tangible, such as a template or software program, used in performing an activity to produce a product or result.

Total Float. The amount of time that a schedule activity can be delayed or extended from its early start date without delaying the project finish date or violating a schedule constraint.

Tree Diagram. A systematic diagram of a decomposition hierarchy used to visualize as parent-to-child relationships a systematic set of rules.

 

Trend Analysis. An analytical technique that uses mathematical models to forecast future outcomes based on historical results. It is a method of determining the variance from a baseline of a budget, cost, schedule, or scope parameter by using prior progress reporting periods’ data and projecting how much that parameter’s variance from baseline might be at some future point in the project if no changes are made in executing the project.

Trigger Condition. An event or situation that indicates that a risk is about to occur.