The Complete AWS Cloud Computing Glossary

Acceptance criteria are the specific, testable conditions a deliverable must meet before the customer accepts...

ATDD writes the acceptance tests collaboratively — customer, developer, tester together — before development b...

Accountability is answering for the outcome — it belongs to exactly one person and cannot be shared or delegat...

An activity is a distinct, scheduled piece of work with a duration, resources, and usually dependencies — the...

Actual Cost is the simplest of the three EVM numbers: the total money actually spent to accomplish the work co...

An adaptive (agile, change-driven) life cycle fixes time and cost into short iterations and lets scope flex: b...

An affinity diagram organizes a large messy set of ideas into natural clusters: everyone writes items on cards...

An agile coach develops agile capability beyond a single team — coaching teams, leaders, and the organization...

The 2001 Agile Manifesto states four value pairs: individuals and interactions over processes and tools, worki...

The agile mindset is the belief system beneath the practices: value flows from learning fast, people closest t...

When projects use or deliver AI, governance questions become project management questions: data privacy (what...

AI in project management spans machine assistance across the life cycle: schedule risk prediction from histori...

The 2026 PMP expects working literacy in AI as a PM tool: predictive analytics (schedule/cost risk forecasts f...

Alternatives analysis is the structured comparison of different ways to achieve an objective — build vs buy vs...

Analogous (top-down) estimating prices new work by comparing it to similar past work, adjusted for differences...

An artifact is any document, template, output, or deliverable produced while managing a project — charters, re...

The assumption log records what you're treating as true without proof (assumptions) and what you must work wit...

Backlog refinement is the ongoing activity of keeping the backlog ready: splitting epics into stories, clarify...

BDD extends TDD by writing examples of system behavior in business-readable language — Given/When/Then — agree...

Benchmarking compares your practices, processes, or metrics against comparable projects or organizations — int...

The benefits delivery phase is the period in a program's life cycle when component projects and program activi...

Benefits identification is the first phase of program benefits management — the process of figuring out exactl...

The benefits management plan defines each intended benefit, how and when it will be measured, who owns it, and...

Benefits realization is the discipline of ensuring a project or program actually produces the business value t...

The benefits register lists every planned benefit with its measure, baseline, target, timing, owner, and curre...

A benefits sustainment plan is the document that defines how the benefits delivered by a program will be maint...

Benefits transition hands delivered capabilities to the operational owners who will run them; sustainment ensu...

A bidder conference is the meeting where all prospective sellers hear the buyer's requirements and ask questio...

Bottom-up estimating prices every work package individually — ideally with the people who'll do the work — the...

Budget at Completion is the total authorized budget for the entire project — the finish-line number all other...

A burndown chart plots remaining work (story points, hours, or tasks) against time, falling toward zero as a s...

A burnup chart plots completed work rising toward a total-scope line over time. Unlike the burndown, it shows...

Business analysis is the discipline of identifying business needs and defining solutions that deliver value —...

The business case is the document that justifies the investment: the problem or opportunity, the options consi...

The business need is the problem or opportunity that justifies doing anything at all — falling retention, a ne...

Business value is the net benefit an initiative creates — tangible (revenue, cost savings, market share) and i...

Cadence is the rhythm work runs on — the fixed heartbeat of sprints, releases, planning, and reviews. A steady...

A capability is the organizational capacity to do something it couldn't before — run same-day fulfillment, und...

The Change Control Board is the group with the authority to approve, defer, or reject change requests — typica...

The change control system is the machinery that executes the change management plan: the forms, the tracking t...

The change management plan defines how changes will be handled before any change exists: who may submit reques...

A change request is the formal proposal to modify any project document, deliverable, or baseline. Four flavors...

Claims administration is the process of documenting, monitoring, and resolving contested changes — situations...

The code of accounts is the numbering system that uniquely identifies every WBS element (1.2.3 = project 1, de...

Colocation places the team physically together — same room or floor — to maximize the highest-bandwidth commun...

The communication management plan defines who needs what information, when, in what format, and from whom — pl...

Complexity is the project characteristic arising from many interacting elements — human behavior, system inter...

Component authorization is the formal process by which a program manager officially approves a component proje...

Components are the projects, subsidiary programs, and other work inside a program. Each has its own manager, p...

PMI recognizes five approaches: collaborate/problem-solve (dig into the real issue, win-win — the default righ...

A constraint is a limiting factor the project must work within — a fixed deadline, a capped budget, a regulati...

A contingency plan is the pre-built response that executes if an identified risk fires — designed calmly in ad...

Contingency reserve is time or money set aside for identified risks — the "known unknowns" already sitting in...

Continuous delivery keeps the product permanently releasable: every change that passes the automated pipeline...

Continuous integration means every developer merges small changes into the shared mainline at least daily, and...

A control account is a management point on the WBS where scope, budget, actual cost, and schedule are integrat...

A control chart plots process measurements over time against a center line and statistically derived upper/low...

Corrective action realigns performance with the plan after a deviation has occurred; preventive action interve...

The cost baseline is the approved, time-phased budget for the project work — not just a total, but when the mo...

Cost of quality is everything you spend because quality matters — split into the cost of conformance (preventi...

CPI measures cost efficiency: how much value the project earns for every dollar spent. A CPI of 1.0 means you'...

Cost Variance is the dollar gap between the value of the work performed and what it cost: negative means over...

Cost-benefit analysis compares what an option costs against what it returns, in money, so alternatives can be...

In a cost-reimbursable (cost-plus) contract, the buyer pays the seller's legitimate actual costs plus a fee —...

Crashing is schedule compression by adding resources to critical path activities — more people, overtime, prem...

Critical chain scheduling accounts for resource limits, not just task logic, and attacks a human truth: people...

The critical path is the longest sequence of dependent activities through a project — and therefore the shorte...

The Critical Path Method is the analytical technique behind the critical path: a forward pass through the netw...

A cross-functional team contains, inside itself, every skill needed to turn an idea into a finished increment...

Crystal (Alistair Cockburn) is a family of methods tuned by team size and criticality — Crystal Clear for a co...

A cumulative flow diagram stacks the count of work items in each state (to do, in progress, done) over time as...

The customer is whoever will approve and manage the project's product, service, or result — and often the one...

Cycle time measures how long a work item takes from when work starts on it to when it's done. Its sibling, lea...

The daily standup is a 15-minute team synchronization: inspect progress toward the sprint goal, surface impedi...

A dashboard presents project health at a glance — KPIs, trends, RAG statuses, burn charts — tailored to its au...

The data date is the as-of point for all project status: everything to its left is actuals, everything to its...

A decision tree maps a choice and its uncertain outcomes as branches, attaches probabilities and payoffs to ea...

Decomposition is the technique of breaking scope into smaller, more manageable pieces — the engine behind the...

The Definition of Done is the team's shared, explicit checklist of what "complete" means for every increment —...

The definition of ready is the team's checklist for backlog items entering a sprint: clear enough, small enoug...

A deliverable is any unique, verifiable product, result, or capability a project must produce — tangible (a bu...

The Delphi technique gathers expert judgment anonymously and in rounds: experts answer independently, a facili...

Four logical relationships link activities: Finish-to-Start (successor starts after predecessor finishes — 90%...

Design of experiments is the statistical method for testing multiple factors simultaneously to find which ones...

Design thinking is a human-centered problem-solving cycle: empathize with users, define the real problem, idea...

The development team — current Scrum Guide just says "developers" — is everyone who builds the increment: engi...

DevOps collapses the wall between development ("change fast") and operations ("stay stable") into one culture...

A disbenefit is a genuinely negative outcome a program creates for some stakeholder as a consequence of succee...

DSDM is one of agile's elders (1994), distinctive for wrapping iterative delivery in full project governance:...

Effort is the labor content (40 person-hours); duration is the calendar time it occupies (could be 1 day with...

Earned Value is the budgeted worth of the work actually completed — not what you spent, but what the finished...

Earned Value Management is the technique that answers the question every sponsor eventually asks: "You've spen...

Emergent risks are the ones that couldn't have been identified in advance — unknowable unknowns arising from c...

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and manage your own emotions and to read and respond to oth...

Enterprise environmental factors are the conditions around your project that you don't control but must plan w...

ERM manages risk at the whole-organization level — strategic, financial, operational, reputational, compliance...

An epic is a body of work too large to finish in one sprint — a container that gets progressively broken into...

Escalation is deliberately moving an issue, risk, or decision to a higher authority because it exceeds your ow...

Estimate at Completion is the forecast of what the whole project will actually cost, given performance so far....

Estimate to Complete answers the forward-looking question: "from this point, how much more money do we need to...

Expected monetary value converts an uncertain event into a single planning number: probability × impact. Threa...

Expert judgment means consulting people with relevant specialized knowledge — team members, consultants, other...

XP is the agile method with the strongest engineering opinions: pair programming, test-driven development, con...

The fallback plan is plan C: what you execute if the risk occurs and the primary response (the contingency pla...

Fast tracking compresses the schedule by performing activities in parallel that were planned in sequence. It c...

A feasibility analysis tests whether a proposed project can realistically succeed before serious money commits...

A feature is a coherent chunk of product capability that delivers value a user can recognize — bigger than a s...

FDD is an agile method built around a features list: develop an overall object model, list the features (small...

The fishbone (Ishikawa, cause-and-effect) diagram puts one problem at the fish's head and organizes potential...

The fixed formula method credits earned value in preset chunks: 50/50 (half when the activity starts, half at...

In a fixed-price (lump sum) contract, the seller commits to deliver defined scope for a set price — and eats a...

Float (also called slack) is how long an activity can be delayed without pushing the project's finish date. Ac...

The forward pass walks the network left to right computing each activity's earliest start and finish; the back...

Free float is the tighter cousin of total float: how long an activity can slip without delaying the early star...

In a functional organization, staff are grouped by specialty — engineering, marketing, finance — and report to...

A Gantt chart is the horizontal bar chart of the schedule: each activity is a bar placed on a calendar, its le...

A generalizing specialist — the T-shaped person — has deep expertise in one discipline (the T's stem) plus wor...

Gold plating is adding features or polish the customer never asked for — extra scope injected by the team itse...

A governance tolerance range defines the acceptable limits of variation — in cost, schedule, scope, or quality...

Grade is a category of features — economy versus premium. Quality is how well the thing meets its requirements...

A hard (mandatory) dependency is a sequence you cannot change because physics, law, or the nature of the work...

A histogram is a bar chart of a distribution: values grouped into bins, bar height showing frequency. Its gift...

A hybrid approach mixes predictive and adaptive methods within one project: typically predictive where scope i...

Impact mapping draws a four-level tree from goal to backlog: Why (the measurable goal) → Who (actors who can m...

An impediment is anything slowing or stopping the team's progress: a blocked dependency, a missing decision, a...

The increment is the sum of all backlog items completed during a sprint plus all prior increments — a concrete...

Incremental value delivery means releasing usable value in slices throughout the project instead of one big ba...

An influence diagram is a compact graph of a decision situation: decisions (squares), uncertainties (circles),...

An information radiator is a large, always-visible display of project truth — task board, burndown, build stat...

Integrated change control is the discipline of reviewing every change request, assessing its impact across all...

IRR is the discount rate at which a project's NPV equals exactly zero — effectively the project's implied annu...

The issue log tracks problems that have already happened and need resolution: each issue gets an owner, a prio...

An iteration is a fixed-length development cycle — plan a slice, build it, review it, improve the process, rep...

Incremental delivers finished pieces one at a time — each increment is done, but the product grows part by par...

Kaizen — Japanese for "change for the better" — is the practice of relentless, small, everyone-driven improvem...

Kanban is a flow-based method: visualize the work on a board, limit how much is in progress at once, and conti...

A kanban board visualizes workflow: columns for each state (to do → in progress → review → done), cards for wo...

A KPI is a measurable value tracking progress toward an objective that matters — emphasis on key: a handful ch...

The kickoff meeting marks the start of execution: it brings the team and key stakeholders together to align on...

A kill point is a phase gate viewed from its sharpest angle: the pre-agreed moment where the project can be te...

Lead time is the clock the customer sees: from the moment work is requested to the moment it's delivered — que...

A lead accelerates a successor activity — it starts before its predecessor finishes (shown as a negative value...

Lean software development (the Poppendiecks' translation of Toyota principles) centers on eliminating waste —...

Lessons learned is the discipline of capturing what worked and what didn't — throughout the project, not just...

Earned value recognizes three work types: discrete effort — measurable, tied to specific deliverables (pour 10...

Make-or-buy analysis is the structured decision between producing something in-house and procuring it: compare...

Management reserve is budget or schedule held for the truly unforeseen — the "unknown unknowns" no risk worksh...

A management reserve at the program level is a budget set aside to handle unknown-unknown risks — events that...

A matrix blends functional and projectized structures: people keep a functional home (and boss) while also ans...

A methodology is a defined system of practices, techniques, procedures, and rules for running projects — PRINC...

A milestone is a significant point or event in the project — a phase gate passed, a major deliverable accepted...

Mind mapping radiates ideas from a central concept outward into branches and sub-branches, capturing structure...

An MVP is the smallest version of a product that delivers real value to real users while maximizing what the t...

Mob programming is the whole team working on one problem at one screen: a single driver types (rotating every...

Monte Carlo simulation is a quantitative risk technique that runs a project model thousands of times with rand...

MoSCoW sorts requirements into four buckets: Must have (without these, the release fails or is illegal), Shoul...

The exam's big three: Maslow's hierarchy — needs stack from physiological through safety, social, and esteem t...

Multicriteria decision analysis evaluates options against several weighted criteria in a matrix: define criter...

A near-critical path is a chain of activities with float so small that a modest slip makes it the new critical...

NPV discounts every future cash flow back to today's money and subtracts the investment: money later is worth...

Nominal group technique structures brainstorming to protect it from its own dynamics: ideas are generated sile...

OKRs pair a qualitative, inspiring Objective ("make onboarding effortless") with 3–5 measurable Key Results th...

Operational readiness is the verified state where the receiving organization can actually run what's being del...

An opportunity is a risk with an upside — an uncertain event that would help objectives if it occurred. It get...

The OBS is the hierarchical chart of the project organization — departments, teams, units — arranged so work c...

OCM prepares people to adopt what projects deliver: stakeholder readiness, communication, training, champions,...

Organizational change management at the program level is the discipline of preparing, supporting, and guiding...

Organizational process assets are everything your organization has learned and standardized that you can reuse...

Osmotic communication (Alistair Cockburn, Crystal) is the useful information team members absorb from backgrou...

An output is what the project produces — the system, the building, the report. An outcome is the changed condi...

Overall project risk is the uncertainty of the project as a whole — the combined effect of all individual risk...

Pacing is deliberately timing component starts, finishes, and outputs so the program flows: benefits arrive wh...

Pair programming puts two developers on one problem at one screen: the driver types, the navigator reviews con...

Parametric estimating multiplies a unit rate by a quantity: cost per square meter × square meters, hours per t...

A Pareto chart is a bar chart of problem causes sorted from most to least frequent, usually with a cumulative-...

Path convergence is multiple network paths merging into one activity — that node needs all of them finished, s...

The payback period is how long an investment takes to earn back its initial cost — the simplest project-select...

The PMB is the integrated scope-schedule-cost baseline that earned value measures against: the WBS says what,...

The performing organization is the enterprise whose people actually do the project work — the contractor build...

A persona is a fictional but research-grounded archetype of a user — name, role, goals, frustrations, context...

PESTLE scans the macro environment across six lenses: Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Envir...

A phase gate is a formal checkpoint at a phase's end where governance reviews performance and the business cas...

A phase-gate review is a formal decision point in a program's life cycle where the program's governance board...

PDCA — the Shewhart/Deming cycle — is the engine of continuous improvement: Plan a change with a predicted out...

Planned Value is the authorized budget for the work scheduled to be done by a given date — in plain terms, "wh...

Planning poker is consensus-based estimation: each team member privately picks a card (usually Fibonacci — 1,...

The PMBOK® Guide is PMI's foundational standard for project management. The 7th edition (2021) reframed it aro...

The 2026-era PMP continues three domains — People, Process, Business Environment — with roughly half of questi...

Portfolio balancing is the ongoing act of tuning the investment mix — risk versus return, short-term versus st...

Portfolio management selects and balances the organization's whole collection of projects and programs against...

The power/interest grid classifies stakeholders along two axes — their power over the project and their intere...

The precedence diagram method (PDM) draws the schedule as a network: activities are boxes, dependencies are ar...

Accuracy means close to the true value; precision means measurements cluster tightly together. They're indepen...

A predictive (plan-driven, waterfall) life cycle fixes scope, schedule, and cost early, then executes phase by...

The probability-impact (P×I) matrix is the grid that turns qualitative risk scores into priorities: probabilit...

The five process groups — Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling, Closing (IPECC) — organiz...

A procurement audit is the structured review of the procurement process itself — from planning through contrac...

The three bid documents map to what the buyer knows: RFQ (request for quotation) — commodity purchase, price i...

The procurement management plan defines how the project will buy: what gets procured versus made, contract typ...

The product backlog is the single, ordered list of everything that might be built — features, fixes, improveme...

The product life cycle spans a product's whole existence — introduction, growth, maturity, decline, retirement...

The product owner owns the what and the why: maximizing product value by managing and ordering the product bac...

A product roadmap communicates direction over time: themes and outcomes now / next / later — deliberately coar...

Product scope is the features and functions of the thing being delivered; project scope is all the work requir...

Program audits are independent examinations of whether the program follows its governance, manages money and r...

At program level, change management means two linked things: controlling changes to program scope, roadmap, an...

The program charter authorizes the program: its vision, intended benefits, scope at program level, key compone...

Program closure is the final phase: confirm remaining benefits are transitioned to sustainment owners, close o...

Collaboration in program management means creating the conditions where component teams, the program core team...

A program contingency reserve is budget set aside at the program level to cover the financial impact of identi...

The program core team is the group of senior professionals who work directly with the program manager to plan,...

Program definition is the first life-cycle phase, in two movements: formulation — shape the business case, sec...

The program financial framework defines how money flows through the program: funding sources and their timing,...

Program formulation is the first sub-phase within the program definition phase, where the program's basic stru...

Program governance is the framework of oversight: the governance board, phase-gate reviews, escalation thresho...

Program infrastructure development is the process of establishing the foundational structures, tools, processe...

Program integration management coordinates everything that crosses component boundaries: interdependencies, sh...

PMI's program life cycle has three phases: definition (build the business case, charter, and roadmap), deliver...

Program management coordinates a group of related projects (and other work) as one entity to capture benefits...

The project manager delivers defined scope on time and budget; the program manager delivers benefits through m...

The program master schedule is the high-level schedule that shows how all of a program's component projects an...

The program performance baseline is the approved, integrated reference point for measuring program performance...

Program procurement management covers how a program plans, executes, and controls the acquisition of goods and...

The program resource management plan defines how resources — people, equipment, budget, and materials — will b...

Program risk thresholds are the quantified limits that define which risks belong at which level: below the lin...

The program roadmap is the chronological big picture: components, major milestones, key dependencies, and — cr...

The program sponsor is the senior executive or organizational leader who champions the program at the highest...

Program stakeholder engagement manages a landscape wider and more political than any project's: executives, re...

The program vision is the concise picture of the future state the program exists to create — vivid enough to a...

The program WBS decomposes the program to the level where components take over: program-level deliverables, th...

Progressive elaboration is the principle that project plans get continuously more detailed and accurate as bet...

The project calendar defines when project work may happen — working days, shifts, holidays, seasonal windows —...

The project charter is the document that formally authorizes a project to exist and names the project manager....

Project governance is the oversight framework around a project: who approves what, how decisions above the PM'...

The project life cycle is the series of phases a project passes through from start to close — commonly startin...

The PMIS is the integrated tool environment the project runs on: scheduling software, cost tracking, document...

A PMO standardizes project governance and supports project managers. PMI's three types by control level: suppo...

The project management plan is the master playbook: how the project will be executed, monitored, and closed. I...

A project phase is a collection of logically related activities culminating in the completion of one or more d...

The scope statement describes, in writing, what the project will deliver and — just as important — what it won...

The sponsor is the person (or group) who provides the money and the political air cover, champions the project...

Project success is multi-layered and must be defined before delivery starts: project management success (scope...

In a projectized organization, the project is the primary structure: teams are dedicated, colocated around the...

A project is temporary and unique: it has a start, an end, and produces something that didn't exist. Operation...

A prompt list is a predetermined set of risk categories used to systematically jog identification — walk each...

Psychological safety is the shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk — you can ask the naive...

Qualitative risk analysis ranks the risk register fast: each risk is scored on probability and impact (high/me...

Quality assurance is process-focused and preventive: it asks "are we working in a way that will produce good d...

A quality audit is a structured, usually independent review of whether project activities comply with organiza...

Quality control is product-focused and detective: it inspects, measures, and tests actual deliverables against...

Quantitative risk analysis puts real numbers on the top-priority risks: Monte Carlo simulation for schedule/co...

A RACI chart maps every activity to who is Responsible (does the work), Accountable (owns the outcome — exactl...

Refactoring improves code's internal structure without changing its external behavior — renaming for clarity,...

Release planning maps backlog to time at the medium range: which features land in which release, driven by eit...

Elicitation is actively drawing requirements out of stakeholders and sources — interviews, workshops, observat...

The requirements traceability matrix is a table linking every requirement to its origin (business need, stakeh...

Reserve analysis sizes and then monitors the project's buffers: contingency reserve for identified risks (insi...

Residual risk is what's left after a risk response is implemented. Mitigation reduces a risk; it rarely erases...

The resource breakdown structure is a hierarchical view of resources by category and type — labor (by trade an...

A resource calendar shows when each specific resource — a person, a crane, a test lab — is actually available...

A resource histogram is a bar chart of resource demand over time — hours or headcount per week, stacked by rol...

Resource leveling adjusts the schedule to resolve overallocation — when the plan needs a person or machine in...

Resource smoothing evens out resource demand by shifting activities only within their available float — peaks...

A responsibility assignment matrix maps work (rows) to people or roles (columns) so every piece of work has ex...

The retrospective is the recurring meeting — end of every sprint — where the team inspects its own process: wh...

ROI expresses net benefit as a percentage of cost: what did each invested dollar give back? It's the most wide...

Rework is doing work again because it wasn't right the first time — the purest form of internal failure cost a...

Risk appetite is how much uncertainty an organization is willing to accept in pursuit of its objectives — a st...

Three nested dials: appetite is the general disposition — how much uncertainty the organization is willing to...

Two distinct check-ups: a risk reassessment re-examines the risks themselves — new ones identified, stale ones...

The risk breakdown structure is a hierarchical chart of risk categories — technical, external, organizational,...

A risk burndown chart plots total risk exposure (sum of probability × impact across the register) over time —...

Risk categories group risks by source — technical, external, organizational, project-management (the classic R...

Risk data quality assessment checks how trustworthy the information behind each risk rating is — accuracy, rel...

Risk exposure is the quantified amount of risk carried — for one risk, probability × impact (its EMV); for a p...

The risk management plan defines how risk will be managed on this project — methodology, roles, categories (th...

The risk owner is the single named person accountable for monitoring a specific risk and executing its respons...

The risk register is the living log of identified risks: each entry with its description, probability, impact,...

For threats there are five responses: avoid (eliminate the risk by changing the plan), mitigate (reduce probab...

A risk threshold is the measurable line drawn from risk appetite — the specific level of exposure above which...

A risk trigger is the observable warning sign that a risk is about to occur or has begun — the tripwire that a...

Rolling wave planning means planning near-term work in detail and leaving far-future work at a higher level, e...

The S-curve is cumulative cost (or work) plotted over time. It's S-shaped because projects spend slowly at fir...

SAFe is the most widely adopted framework for running agile across many teams: Agile Release Trains (5–12 team...

The salience model classifies stakeholders on three attributes: power (can they impose their will?), legitimac...

A scatter diagram plots two variables against each other, one dot per observation, to reveal whether they move...

The schedule baseline is the approved version of the schedule — the fixed reference that actual progress is me...

SPI measures schedule efficiency: the rate at which work is actually being completed versus the rate the plan...

Schedule Variance expresses schedule position in dollars: the value of work completed minus the value of work...

The scope baseline is the approved definition of what the project will deliver: the scope statement, the WBS,...

Scope creep is the uncontrolled growth of project scope — additions that bypass change control, arriving one "...

Scrum is the most widely used agile framework: small cross-functional teams deliver working product in fixed-l...

The scrum master is the team's servant-leader and process guardian: coaching Scrum practice, removing impedime...

Scrum of scrums scales coordination: each team sends a representative to a regular cross-team standup focused...

A secondary risk is a brand-new risk created by your risk response itself. You fixed one problem and your fix...

A self-organizing team decides internally how to accomplish its work — who takes what, how to solve problems,...

Sensitivity analysis asks: which input uncertainties move the outcome most? Vary one factor at a time across i...

Servant leadership inverts the traditional pyramid: the leader's job is to serve the team — removing impedimen...

A siloed organization groups people by specialty — analysis, development, testing, operations — so value must...

A smoke test is the fast sanity check that a build's vital functions work at all — can it start, log in, load...

Source selection criteria are the published, weighted factors used to score seller proposals: technical approa...

A spike is a timeboxed investigation whose deliverable is knowledge, not product: research a technology, proto...

A sprint (or iteration) is a short, fixed-length timebox — commonly two weeks — in which the team plans, build...

The sprint backlog is the developers' plan for the sprint: the sprint goal, the product backlog items selected...

Sprint planning opens each sprint: the team answers why (craft a sprint goal), what (select backlog items the...

The sprint review closes the sprint's product loop: the team demonstrates the working increment to stakeholder...

A stakeholder is any individual, group, or organization that can affect, be affected by, or merely perceive it...

Stakeholder analysis systematically works out who your stakeholders are, what they want, how much they matter,...

This matrix compares each stakeholder's current engagement level against the level you need: unaware, resistan...

The stakeholder engagement plan turns analysis into strategy: for each key stakeholder or group, the desired e...

The stakeholder register is the catalog of everyone who can affect or be affected by the project — with their...

The statement of work is the narrative description of the products, services, or results to be delivered — in...

The steering committee (program governance board) is the senior group that owns the big decisions: approving t...

Story points are a relative, unitless measure of effort — this item is roughly twice that one — covering compl...

Strategic alignment is the continuous fit between a program and the organization's strategy — checked at initi...

A subprogram is a group of related projects and activities within a larger program that are managed together b...

The project management plan is a binder of subsidiary plans, one per discipline: scope, requirements, schedule...

A summary (hammock) activity is a single bar representing a group of related activities — its dates and durati...

A sunk cost is money already spent and unrecoverable — and therefore, rationally, irrelevant to any decision a...

Sustainability in projects means managing environmental, social, and governance impact as first-class constrai...

Swarming is the whole team (or most of it) converging on one work item to finish it before starting anything e...

SWOT examines a project or decision from four angles: internal Strengths and Weaknesses, external Opportunitie...

Synergy is the extra value created when components are managed together — benefits unavailable to the same pro...

Tailoring is deliberately selecting which processes, methods, and artifacts fit this project — instead of runn...

The team charter is the team's social contract, written by the team itself: values, working agreements, commun...

Team of teams is a program management principle introduced in the 5th edition of the PMI Standard for Program...

Technical debt is the accumulated future cost of past shortcuts — quick hacks, skipped tests, outdated depende...

A test plan defines how deliverables will be verified: what gets tested at which levels (unit, integration, sy...

TDD inverts the usual order: write a failing test first (red), write the minimum code to pass it (green), then...

Three-point estimating replaces a single guess with three: optimistic (O), most likely (M), and pessimistic (P...

Throughput is the count of work items finished per time period — ten stories a week, forty tickets a month. Wi...

A time and materials contract pays for hours worked at agreed rates plus materials at cost — a hybrid sitting...

Timeboxing fixes the time and lets the content flex: the meeting is 15 minutes, the sprint is 2 weeks, the spi...

TCPI is the efficiency the project must achieve on all remaining work to finish within a target budget — essen...

Total cost of ownership is the full life-cycle price of an option: acquisition plus operation, maintenance, tr...

Trend analysis reads performance over time — CPI drifting down for three periods says more than any single val...

The triple constraint — scope, time, cost, with quality living in the middle — says the three sides are linked...

Tuckman's model says teams develop through five stages: forming (polite, uncertain, leader-dependent), stormin...

A use case describes how an actor (user, system, or time trigger) interacts with a system to achieve a goal —...

UAT is real users (or their representatives) verifying the system supports their actual work before go-live —...

User experience is the totality of how it feels to use the product — findability, speed, clarity, error recove...

A user story is a small, plain-language statement of need from the user's perspective — classically "As a [rol...

Story mapping (Jeff Patton) arranges the backlog in two dimensions: the user's journey flows left to right (th...

Validate Scope is the customer formally accepting completed deliverables. Its exam twin, Control Quality, is t...

Value delivery is the through-line of the modern PMP exam: projects exist to deliver value — to customers, the...

The value delivery system is PMBOK 7's big frame: portfolios, programs, projects, products, and operations wor...

A value proposition states why someone should choose this — the specific benefit, for a specific audience, ver...

Value realization is value actually arriving — measured, in the books, in the mission — as opposed to value pr...

Value stream mapping draws every step from request to delivered value, timing each one and — crucially — the w...

Value-based prioritization orders work by value contribution — economic (revenue, savings, cost of delay), ris...

Variance analysis compares actual performance to baseline, quantifies the gap (cost variance, schedule varianc...

Variance at Completion is the projected difference between the original budget and the forecast final cost — t...

Velocity is the amount of work (usually story points) a team actually completes per sprint, averaged over rece...

Verification asks: did we build the thing right — does it conform to specifications and requirements? (Interna...

Virtual teams work toward shared goals with little or no face time — distributed across cities, countries, and...

The watch list holds low-priority risks — scored too small for active responses but too real to delete. They g...

The WBS dictionary is the companion document to the work breakdown structure: for each WBS element it spells o...

What-if scenario analysis tests the plan against specific hypotheticals — what if the permit slips 60 days? wh...

Work-in-progress limits cap how many items can occupy a workflow stage at once. They feel counterintuitive — l...

The WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total project scope into smaller, manageable pieces — everythin...

A work package is the lowest level of the WBS — a chunk of work small enough to be reliably estimated for cost...

PMI's refinement chain: data are raw observations (12 defects, 47% complete, $89K spent); information is data...

A workaround is the response to a risk that was never planned for — an unidentified risk (or a passively accep...