We know that these terms may be used with slightly different definitions in different campus communities. This is a guide to what we mean when we use these terms.
Activity Schedule – the planned dates for performing schedule activities and the planned dates for meeting schedule milestones
Change Management: Preparing, equipping, and supporting individuals to successfully adopt change in order to drive organizational success and outcomes.
Charter: A document created early in the project lifecycle that outlines the essence of the project, providing a shared understanding of what the goals, constraints, and governance of the project will be. It will state the initial requirements to satisfy key stakeholders’ needs and expectations, and formally authorize the project.
Deliverable: Any tangible outcome produced by the project.
Information Technology Project ‐a temporary effort undertaken by the university with the primary purpose of creating a unique information technology product or service. Temporary means that the project has a definite beginning and a definite end. Unique means that the technology product or service is different in some distinguishing way from all other products or services provided.
Maintenance, Enhancement or Refresh (MER) Activity – development, migration or upgrade activity undertaken as part of the normal, on-going operation of an information technology system and that is not of such significance to be considered a system replacement or major architectural change.
Milestone: A scheduled event on the project timeline that signifies the completion of a major deliverable or set of related deliverables.
Program: An ongoing endeavor undertaken to provide a service or result. While scope and resources are not unlimited, they are often vaguely defined and can shift in order to achieve desired results.
Project: A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. It has a defined beginning and end in time, and therefore defined scope and resources. (Sometimes also called an initiative.)
Project Charter – a document that provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities.
Project Lead: Primary individual with operational accountability for the project, involved with the project on a day-to-day basis. Has significant expertise in one or more of the primary functional areas that the project will impact.
Project Manager: Individual with responsibility for bringing in the project on time and budget, serving as the communication hub for the project, and providing a framework within which the Project Lead’s work can happen. Responsible for managing the project on behalf of the sponsor. Approval of the project charter authorizes the Project Manager to staff the project team, procure resources, and oversee the people and resources necessary to meet the project objectives. Project managers are responsible for reporting project status, budget, schedule and issues to the project stakeholders and the IT PMO. Every IT project must have a designated Project Manager.
Project Management: The application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to the project activities, in order to meet the project requirements.
Procurement Management Plan – the document that describes how procurement processes from developing procurement documentation through contract closure will be managed.
Project Management Office ‐provides project methodology guidance and support for the university’s IT projects.
Project Plan – according to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), the project plan is: “…a formal, approved document used to guide both project execution and project control. The primary uses of the project plan are to document planning assumption and decisions, facilitate communication among stakeholders, and document approved scope, cost, and schedule baselines. A project plan may be summarized or detailed.” The project plan is the planning document, capturing the entire project end-to-end, covering all project phases, from initiation through planning, execution and closure.
Project Research Form (PRF) – a list of general information questions to be completed by the project initiator and submitted to IT PMO as the basis for preliminary discussion, analysis and possible project identification and classification.
Project Sponsor ‐the individual, usually part of the senior management team, who makes the business case for the project. This individual has the authority and responsibility to define project goals, secure resources, and resolve organizational issues and conflicts. The sponsor approves and provides formal sign‐off of the project deliverables and closeout report.
Project Schedule: Documentation of how the project will be completed. It describes the activities required, the sequence of the work, who is assigned to the work, an estimate of how much effort/time is required, when the work is due, and other relevant information.
Project Team ‐comprised of the individuals responsible for completing the project tasks and objectives. The team members may be assigned to the project in a full or part‐time capacity, and may report directly or indirectly to the Project Manager.
Requirement: A condition or task that must be completed to ensure the success or completion of the project. Requirements may address what will be done (we need a new unit to handle these cases) or how that will be done (it needs to be open 8am-5pm, be able to process 50 applications per week, have an error rate of less than 3%). A project should be closed once all the requirements are completed.
Subject Matter Expert (SME): Individual with significant expertise in a functional area impacted by the project. Serves as an informant on the project.
Stakeholders ‐persons or organizations that may be impacted, positively or negatively, by the execution or completion of a project. Stakeholders may be actively involved in project activities and may influence the project outcome and deliverables. The Project Sponsor and Project Manager are responsible for identifying all stakeholders at the start of a project.
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) ‐a deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. It organizes and defines the total scope of the project.