0.14 A glossary of project management terms  (Page 6/8)

Operations management

An area of business that is concerned with the production of good quality goods and services, and involves the responsibility of ensuring that business operations are efficient and effective. It is the management of resources, the distribution of goods and services to customers, and the analysis of queue systems.

Organization

A social arrangement which pursues collective goals, which controls its own performance, and which has a boundary separating it from its environment.

Planning

Planning in project management consists of processes that involve formulating and revising project goals and objectives and creating the project management plan that will be used to achieve the goals the project was undertaken to address. Planning involves determining alternative courses of action and selecting from among the best of those to produce the project's goals.

Process

An ongoing collection of activities, with an inputs, outputs and the energy required to transform inputs to outputs.

Program

A program is the umbrella structure established to manage a series of related projects. The program does not produce any project deliverables. The project teams produce them all. The purpose of the program is to provide overall direction and guidance, to make sure the related projects are communicating effectively, to provide a central point of contact and focus for the client and the project teams, and to determine how individual projects should be defined to ensure that all the work gets completed successfully.

Program management

The process of managing multiple ongoing inter-dependent projects. An example would be that of designing, manufacturing and providing support infrastructure for an automobile manufacturer.

Program manager

A program manager is the person with the authority to manage a program. (Note that this is a role. The program manager may also be responsible for one or more of the projects within the program.) The program manager leads the overall planning and management of the program. All project managers within the program report to the program manager.

Project

A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to accomplish a unique product or service with a defined start and end point and specific objectives that, when attained, signify completion.

Project definition (project charter)

Before you start a project, it is important to know the overall objectives of the project, as well as the scope, deliverables, risks, assumptions, project organization chart, etc. The project definition (or project charter) is the document that holds this relevant information. The project manager is responsible for creating the project definition. The document should be approved by the sponsor to signify that the project manager and the sponsor are in agreement on these important aspects of the project.

Project manager

The project manager is the person with the authority to manage a project. The project manager is 100 percent responsible for the processes used to manage the project. He or she also has people management responsibilities for team members, although this is shared with the team member's functional manager. The processes used to manage the project include defining the work, building the work plan and budget, managing the work plan and budget, scope management, issues management, risk management, etc.