Crowe Terms Flashcards
Acceptance
The act of approving the deliverables.
This is usually performed by the project manager, the sponsor, the customer, and sometimes the functional manager.
Activity Attributes
Information that accompanies each schedule activity.
Activity attributes almost always accompany the activity list.
Allowable Costs
Costs permitted under the terms of a cost-reimbursable contract.
Assumption
Anything treated as true for the purpose of planning.
Assumptions should always be documented.
Bar Chart
A chart with horizontal bars representing the length of time for schedule activities.
Also known as a Gantt chart.
Baseline
The original plan plus all approved changes.
Baselines may be updated throughout the project.
Brainstorming
A tool for gathering ideas, performed in a fast and non-judgmental environment.
Buffer
Extra time or money added to the schedule or budget in order to manage risk.
Checklist
A set of procedural instructions to be followed in order to achieve quality.
Co-location
Physically bringing a team together in one space.
Communications Model
The model where a sender encodes a message, selects a method of transmission, sends it, and confirms that it was received and understood. The receiver receives the message, decodes it, and confirms that it was understood. Noise and filters can disrupt or distort the message.
Conflict
Differences of opinion or agenda.
Conflict most often occurs between the project manager and functional manager(s).
Consensus
Agreement to support an outcome even if all individuals do not agree on the decision itself.
Constraint
Anything that limits the ability to plan.
Contingency
The use of buffers of time or money to help manage overruns.
Also known as a reserve.
Contract
A legal document that specifies the relationship between the buyer and seller.
Control Account
Also known as a cost account.
A control account is a node on the WBS where the earned value is measured and tracked.
Control Chart
A special cart used in statistical process control (a function of quality management) to help determine whether or not a process is in control.
Corrective Action
Anything done to bring future results in line with the plan.
Cost Performance Baseline
A time-phased representation of what costs are expected and when they are expected.
Also known as the budget or S-curve.
Crashing
A form of schedule compression where additional people and other resources are applied to an activity in order to get it done more quickly.
Crashing often increases cost due to the law of diminishing returns.
Criteria
Objective means of measuring quality for acceptance.
The acceptance criteria should always be documented in advance.
Critical Chain Method
A technique for managing a project’s schedule developed by Eliyahu Goldratt that estimates individual activities aggressively and then applies one large buffer for the project manager to manage risk and overrun.
The Critical Chain Method is based on the Theory of Constraints.
Critical Path Method
A technique of schedule analysis used to identify the critical path.