5.14. Key Terms

A Cost-Reimbursable Contract with Award Fee: Reimburses the contractor for all allowable costs plus a fee that is based on performance criteria. The fee is typically based on goals or objectives that are more subjective. An amount of money is set aside for the contractor to earn through excellent performance, and the decision on how much to pay the contractor is left to the judgment of the project team. The amount is sufficient to motivate excellent performance.5.12

A Cost-Reimbursable Contract with a Fixed Fee: Provides the contractor with a fee, or profit amount, that is determined at the beginning of the contract and does not change. 5.12

A Cost-Reimbursable Contract with an Incentive Fee: Used to encourage performance in areas critical to the project. Often the contract attempts to motivate contractors to save or reduce project costs. The use of the cost-reimbursable contract with an incentive fee is one way to motivate cost-reduction behaviors.5.12

A Cost-Reimbursable Contract with a Percentage Fee: Pays the contractor for costs plus a percentage of the costs, such as 5% of total allowable costs. The contractor is reimbursed for allowable costs and is paid a fee.5.12

Active Control: Takes a two-pronged approach: Controlling what you can by making sure you understand what’s important, taking meaningful measurements, and building an effective team focused on project success. Adapting to what you can’t control through early detection and proactive intervention.5.5

Assignable: Who will do the work? Can people be identified who have the expertise in the organization to complete this work? Or can the expertise be hired from outside of the organization? 5.7

Business Requirements: The needs of the sponsoring organization, always from a management perspective. Business requirements are statements of the business rationale for the project. 5.8

Communication Plan: Human Resources would assist in setting up the Communication Plan and on a regular basis “check-in” with the team on how communication between the team, the team and the Project Manager, and between the Project Team and external stakeholders is developing.5.4

Deliverable: This means anything your project delivers. The deliverables for your project include all of the products or services that you and your team are performing for the client, customer, or sponsor, including all the project management documents that you put together.5.4

Deliverables: Include everything that you and your team produce for the project (i.e., anything that your project will deliver). The deliverables for your project include all of the products or services that you and your team are performing for the client, customer, or sponsor.5.8

Deterministic Approach: Labouring under the false notion that once everyone agrees on a plan, the plan itself determines what comes next.5.3

Functional Requirements: Describe the characteristics of the final deliverable in ordinary non-technical language. They should be understandable to the customers, and the customers should play a direct role in their development. Functional requirements are what you want the deliverable to do.5.8

Implementation Phase: Involves putting the project plan into action. It’s here that the project manager will coordinate and direct project resources to meet the objectives of the project plan.5.4

Implementation Phase or Execution Phase: The project plan is put into motion and the work of the project is performed. It is important to maintain control and communicate as needed during implementation. 5.4

Initiation: Marks the official beginning of a project, doing it well also requires looking past the making stage to the entire life cycle of the project’s end result.5.2

Initiation Phase: The first phase within the project management life cycle, as it involves starting up a new project. Within the initiation phase, the business problem or opportunity is identified, a solution is defined, a project is formed, and a project team is appointed to build and deliver the solution to the customer. 5.7

Measurable: How will project progress and success be measured? What will be the measurable difference once our project is completed successfully? These measures should be quantifiable.5.7

Non-Functional Requirements: Specify criteria that can be used to judge the final product or service that your project delivers. 5.8

Performance Plans: Human Resources would have established performance plans with the team and Project Manager at the beginning of the project.  They would regularly “check-in” and perhaps have mini-performance reviews with the team (individually, or team) to ensure the goals are being met, that deadlines are being met, and the team dynamic is strong.5.4

Planning: The act or process of making a plan to achieve or do something. This suggests that the ultimate goal of planning is the plan itself. It also presumes that once a plan has been formulated, you only need to follow the plan to achieve the desired outcome.5.3

Planning Phase: When the project plans are documented, the project deliverables and requirements are defined, and the project schedule is created. It involves creating a set of plans to help guide your team through the implementation and closure phases of the project.5.3

Project Charter: project definition or project statement is a statement of the scope, objectives, and participants in a project. It provides a preliminary delineation of roles and responsibilities, outlines the project objectives, identifies the main stakeholders, and defines the authority of the project manager. 5.10

Project Department Managers: May participate in the planning, provide resources for the project-including employees 5.2

Project Life Cycle: A series of phases that the project progresses through from beginning to end.  It is the foundation of the project. The four major phases include  Initiation, Planning, Execution or Implementation, Closure. 5.2

Project Management: Has a dual nature; it is both a series of distinct phases with a clear beginning and end and a continuous, circular process in which each end leads to a new beginning 5.2

Project Manager:  manages the project from planning to execution to closure, and is responsible for the success of the project.5.2

Project Planning: At the heart of the project life cycle, and tells everyone involved where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. 5.3

Project Scope Planning: Concerned with the definition of all the work needed to successfully meet the project objectives. The whole idea here is that when you start the project, you need to have a clear picture of all the work that needs to happen on your project, and as the project progresses, you need to keep that scope up to date and documented in the project’s scope management plan.5.8

Project Selection: Determined by a team of people, usually at the executive level, of projects that are a priority to the organization and align with the mission, vision and values of the organization.5.2

Project Sponsor: Could be one of or all of the stakeholders. They would authorize the funds to be used for the project, be a champion of the project.5.2

Project Stakeholders: Formalize the project scope, deliverables.5.2

Project Team Members: Provide their expertise to the project and contribute to the work being done on the project. 5.2

Realistic: Is it realistic that the organization can achieve this project, given its talents and resources? This is a very important consideration for businesses of all sizes. Yes, it would be great to produce a new driverless car, but is that realistic given the resources that the organization has available? 5.7

Regulatory Requirements: These can be internal or external and are usually non-negotiable. They are the restrictions, licenses, and laws applicable to a product or business that are imposed by the government. They required compliance for all, and standards must be met.5.8

Report Distribution: Human Resources may play a role in monitoring report distribution, and ensuring that reports are flowing where they need to be? to who do they need to go? and on time?  If there are issues, Human Resources may intervene to figure out the issues, and help the team solve the problems.5.4

Retrospectives: These are lessons learned on Agile projects.  Human Resources would work with the team (as an outside facilitator).  They would act as a guide to lead the team through a workshop and process to identify what went well in the project, what could they have improved upon, and what type of follow-up action plan could they develop with goals and accountability.5.6

Request For Proposal (RFP): Which is a “document that describes a project’s needs in a particular area and asks for proposed solutions (along with pricing, timing, and other details) from qualified vendors 5.12

Requirements: Describe the characteristics of the final deliverable, whether it is a product or a service. They describe the required functionality that the final deliverable must have or specific conditions the final deliverable must meet in order to satisfy the objectives of the project.5.8

Scope: The work that needs to be completed to deliver the product/service.  It is the final result of the project.5.8

Scope Evolution: Refers to changes that all stakeholders agree on, and that are accompanied by corresponding changes in budget and schedule. Scope evolution is a natural result of the kind of learning that goes on as a project unfolds. 5.9

Scope Statement:  The document that defines the project’s scope, is a major part of the initiation phase. 5.9. Includes Who? What? When? Where? Why? Costs.5.8

SMART: An acronym for Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, and Time-Related. The smart criteria have been applied in many different areas of management, including project management. Let’s take a look at each of Doran’s criteria as they apply to project management.5.7

Specific: A project needs to be specific about what it will accomplish. Unlike many organizational goals, the goal of a project should not be vague or nebulous.5.7

Technical Requirements: Emerge from the functional requirements to answer the questions: how will the problem be solved this time and will it be solved technologically and/or procedurally? They specify how the system needs to be designed and implemented to provide required functionality and fulfill required operational characteristics.5.8

The Fixed-Price Contract with Incentive Fee: Provides an incentive for performing on the project above the established baseline in the contract. The contract might include an incentive for completing the work on an important milestone for the project. 5.12

The Fixed-Price Contract with Price Adjustment: Used for unusually long projects that span years. The most common use of this type of contract is the inflation-adjusted price. 5.12

Time-Related: When will the project be completed and how long will it take? These criteria can be very useful when defining a project. If the description for a project does not meet all these criteria, then it is time to go back to the drawing board and make sure that what is being described is really a project, rather than a program or strategic goal.5.7

Triple Constraints: Time, cost, and scope 5.9

Uncertainty: Is not an exceptional state in an otherwise predictable process of work, they argue. Instead, it is a permanent feature of modern work. What’s more, the longer the time between planning and implementation, the higher the uncertainty surrounding individual activities.5.3

User Requirements: Describe what the users need to do with the system or product. The focus is on the user experience with the system under all scenarios. These requirements are the input for the next development phases: user-interface design and system test cases design.5.8