Term

Description

Project

Term used to represent the work needed to create something new. The Project Management Institute defines a project as "a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result" (5).
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). Third Edition ©2004 Project Management Institute.
Sample projects:

• Software updates
• building a house
• renovating a building
• building a new part for a jet
• creating a marketing campaign
• creating a political campaign
• planning an event
• implementing a new course
• implementing a new government program

Project charter

Document that "lays out every aspect of the project before the first dollar is spent." The project charter specifies the scope of the project, the resources that will be used (personnel and otherwise), the stakeholders, the risks, assumptions about the project, and the work breakdown structure (the breakdown of tasks that need to be done to complete the project).
Engle, Paul. "The Project Management Office" Industrial Engineer: IE, January 2005, Vol. 37 Issue 1, p 20.

Project plan

"The charter documents what"s to be done, and the project plan lays out how it will be accomplished. The project plan includes the schedule, required resources, and budget." It is often documented in a ganttchart format. (Engle)

Project management

Project management is the ensemble of activities (such as tasks) concerned with successfully achieving a set of goals. This includes planning, scheduling and maintaining progress of the activities that comprise the project. Reduced to its simplest project management is the discipline of maintaining the risk of failure at as low a value as necessary over the lifetime of the project. Risk of failure arises primarily from the presence of uncertainty at all stages of a project.
An alternate point of view is that project management is the discipline of defining and achieving targets while optimizing the use of resources (time, money, people, space, etc).
Project management is quite often the province and responsibility of an individual project manager. This individual seldom participates directly in the activities that produce the end result, but rather strives to maintain the progress and productive mutual interaction of various parties in such a way that overall risk of failure is reduced.
Source: Free Advice Center / Business / Project management, 2004.
Project management is a strategic competency that has successfully been applied in such high profile projects as rebuilding the Pentagon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the transformation of IBM by Lou Gerstner from an IT hardware giant to an IT software and computer services leader, organizing and managing the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, and the upcoming Summer Games in Beijing, just to name a few.
See www.pmi.org .

Issues log

Log of all the issues on a project, usually including the following information for each issue: person responsible, date, resolution strategy, and deadline for resolution.

Risk log

Log of all identified risks on a project, usually including mitigation strategies and responsible parties.

Change log

Log of all changes to the original project scope, usually including change impact analyses or reference to the change impact analysis documentation.

Work breakdown structure

All the tasks in a project arranged in a hierarchy so that all the levels of work to be done on the project can be seen in context.