A Glossary that is Comparative and Linked
Do you have project communication problems?
In these days of "virtual project teams" you probably recognize the difficulties of communication amongst people with
different mother tongues. However, even with the same mother tongue, you may think you all mean the same thing using
project management terms but, as this Glossary shows, that can be far from the case. Indeed, many seemingly familiar
terms mean very different things to different people.
Successful project management depends on clear
communication and all participants must share a common understanding
of the terminology they use if problems are to be avoided. Yet the
diverse roots of project management have led to many different "dialects".
Consequently, project communications can be foggy at best and down
right dangerous at worst if people use the same term to convey
different meanings. Every organization running projects should recognize this risk and avoid it by establishing
its own glossary of principal terms.
This Glossary enables you to make the appropriate selection.
Our Vision: Solving the Communication Problem
At a very modest cost, a copy of this Glossary on the PC of every
project management practitioner in the world, and a copy in the
study material of every project management student!
Our approach
Our objective is to bring more order and better understanding to our world of
project management. Accordingly, in many cases we provide not just one
meaning but several from many authoritative sources.
This illustrates the range of opinion often in even the most common terms.
Moreover, most project management terms depend on other terms for
clarity and in a paper-based glossary you have to do a lot of page
turning to get a clear understanding.
In this Glossary, HTML allows us to provide liberal hyperlinks
that take you to associated terms with just one click. Always review
these links and any listed alternatives because these often provide significant
insight into the intended meaning. Further, some terms have different
meanings in different contexts or in different areas of project management
application. Don't be surprised to find that some definitions are even contradictory!
We hope the Glossary will help you assemble an appropriate project
reference document for your projects. We have marked our recommendation
with a check mark but you may have different ideas. Select with
care - and please make sure that you include the source references!
Acknowledgements
We are indebted to the many people who have contributed
to this glossary whether wittingly or unwittingly. In particular
to Graham Wideman for creating the software capable of generating
this Glossary and to Penny Schneider for the web site art work.
For comments and suggestions, Email to: max_wideman@sfu.ca
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