Glossary

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The following terms are used in the life cycle methodology. If you have questions or suggestions regarding a term, please contact oit-projectoffice@duke.edu.

Acceptance Testing: Testing by the client or sponsor to confirm that the system meets all requirements and is ready for operational use.

Benchmark: A standard by which something can be measured or judged; to measure a product according to specified standards in order to compare it with and improve one's own product. We can use other higher education institutions' business processes as benchmarks to evaluate our own.

Change Management: The process of developing a planned approach to change in an organization. Typically the objective is to maximize the collective efforts of all people involved in the change. (Wikipedia)

Chief Sponsor (project role): The Chief Sponsor has the ultimate authority, accountability, and responsibility for the project (which is to say, "the buck stops here"). The Chief Sponsor is normally a senior staff member (director level or higher) who is responsible for an operational area that will be affected by the outcome of the project and/or has specific knowledge or skills that will aid in the success of the project. S/he is involved in project definition, and develops the project scope in conjunction with the project manager, including specifying desired deliverables and results. The Chief Sponsor ensures the provision of financial and other resources, mitigates roadblocks, and provides guidance and feedback to the project manager during the life of the project.Chief Sponsor (project role): The Chief Sponsor has the ultimate authority, accountability, and responsibility for the project (which is to say, "the buck stops here"). The Chief Sponsor is normally a senior staff member (director level or higher) who is responsible for an operational area that will be affected by the outcome of the project and/or has specific knowledge or skills that will aid in the success of the project. S/he is involved in project definition, and develops the project scope in conjunction with the project manager, including specifying desired deliverables and results. The Chief Sponsor ensures the provision of financial and other resources, mitigates roadblocks, and provides guidance and feedback to the project manager during the life of the project.

Communications Plan: Method to communicate important messages to key stakeholders of an organization in the most effective way possible. (Wikipedia)

Deliverable: Any unique and verifiable product, result, or capability to perform a service that must be produced to complete a process, phase, or project. (Often used more narrowly in reference to an external deliverable, which is a deliverable that is subject to approval by the project sponsor or customer.) (PMI)

End of Life: is a euphemism used with respect to a retailed product, indicating that a vendor will not be doing the following: marketing, selling, promoting or supporting a particular product. (Wikipedia)

Functional Manager (operational role – optional): This optional role supports the Service Manager by managing the functional components of a service, such as gathering user requirements, managing customer expectations, and providing support. The Functional Manager may not be directly responsible for all functional service components, but s/he is the "go to person" for any functional questions or issues. The Functional Manager is responsible for reaching out to appropriate staff to help resolve functional service-related issues. 

Functional Testing: Functional tests are conducted to ensure a system behaves according to the functional requirements, and should not be performed by the people who built the system.

Load Testing: Load tests put an application under heavy loads, such as testing a web site under a range of loads to determine at what point the system's response time degrades or fails. Automated testing tools are used to conduct this type of test.

Objective: Something toward which work is to be directed - a strategic position to be attained, or a purpose to be achieved, a result to be obtained, a product to be produced, or a service to be performed. (PMI)

OLA (Operational or Operating Level Agreement): An internal service agreement between internal departments that supports any SLA requirements. (PMI)

PMI: Project Management International, the professional organization for project managers. www.pmi.org

Process Management: Process management is the ensemble of activities of planning and monitoring the performance of a process, especially in the sense of business process, often confused with reengineering.
Process Management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, techniques and systems to define, visualize, measure, control, report and improve processes with the goal to meet customer requirements profitably.
ISO 9000 mandates the process approach to managing an organization. (Wikipedia)

Project: A temporary undertaking with a beginning and end date that uses resources to produce a specific result.

Project Life Cycle: A collection of generally sequential project phases whose name and number are determined by the needs of the organization(s) involved in the project. (PMI)

Project Manager (project role):  The Project Manager is responsible for planning and executing an assigned project in order to achieve the project objectives. Throughout the lifetime of the project, s/he ensures the success of the project by minimizing risks. 

Project Office: OIT office that maintains and tracks official OIT projects, serves as a source of best practices for project management within OIT, and provides project management resources/services for a limited number of high priority OIT projects.

Project Proposal Template: The OIT format for formally describing a project concept to potential sponsors.

Quality Assurance/Quality Control: All activities from design, development, production, installation, servicing and documentation. QA/QC includes the regulation of the quality of raw materials, assemblies, products and components; services related to production; and management, production, and inspection processes. (Wikipedia)

RFI (Request for Information): A type of procurement document whereby the buyer requests a potential seller to provide various pieces of information related to a product or service or seller capability. (PMI)

RFP (Request for Proposal): A type of procurement document used to request proposals from prospective sellers of products or services. (PMI)

Resource: Skilled human resources, equipment, services, supplies, commodities, materiel, budgets, or funds. (PMI)

Responsibility Matrix: In a large project, there may be many people who have some role in the creation and approval of project deliverables. Sometimes this is pretty straightforward, such as one person writing a document and one person approving it. In other cases, there may be many people who have a hand in the creation and others that need to have varying levels of approval. For complicated scenarios involving many people, it can be helpful to have a Deliverable Responsibility Matrix. This helps set expectations and ensures people know what is expected from them. For instance, you need to know whether the members of the Steering Committee need to approve the Business Requirements document. The matrix can lay it all out. On the matrix, the different people (or roles) appear as columns, with the specific deliverables in question listed as rows. Then, use the intersecting points to describe each person's responsibility for each deliverable. (TenStep)

Risk: An uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on a project's objectives. (PMI)

Scope: The sum of the products, services, and results to be prvided as a project. (PMI)

Scope Creep: Adding features and functionality without addressing the effects on time, costs, and resources, or without customer approval.

Service Manager (operational role): The Service Manager is principally responsible for end-to-end management of a service, including day-to-day operations and defining and implementing any necessary functional and technical changes to the service. The Service Manager may and should coordinate with other person(s) or units in order to adequately provision and support the service. The Service Manager (or a designee) relies on the support of other directors, managers, and staff to successfully fulfill his/her responsibility. Depending on the complexity and breadth of a particular service, the Service Manager may elect to specify a Functional Manager and/or a Technical Manager. 

SLA (Service Level Agreement): A written agreement documenting the required levels of service by external customers, or a written statement of provided levels of service. (PMI)

Sponsor (project role): The Sponsor(s) is normally a part of the management team (manager level or higher), who can exert influence on the outcome of the project. The Sponsor is also responsible for facilitating acquisition of human resources and for providing insight and feedback to the project manager throughout the duration of the project.

Stakeholder: Persons and organizations such as customers, sponsors, and the public, that are actively involved in the project, or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected by execution or completion of the project. They may also exert influence over the project and its deliverables. (PMI)

Standard Operating Procedure: A military term used to describe a procedure or set of procedures to perform a given operation or evolutions or in reaction to a given event.

Statement of Work: A narrative description of products, services, or results to be supplied. (PMI)

Stress Testing: Stress tests subject a system to a high volume of data in order to determine how many transactions can be supported by a system. Automated testing tools are used to conduct this type of test.

Technical Manager (operational role – optional): This optional role supports the Service Manager by managing the technical components of a service, such as maintaining related technical infrastructure and applications. The Technical Manager may not be directly responsible for all technical service components, but s/he is the "go to person" for any technical questions or issues. The Technical Manager is responsible for reaching out to appropriate staff to help resolve technical service-related issues.  

Unit Testing: Unit tests are basic tests at the module level to ensure that a given function works. Unit testing is generally performed by the programmer or developer while building a system.

Usability Testing: Testing the ease with which users can learn and use a system.

Use Case: A technique in software engineering for capturing the potential requirements of a new system or software change. Each use case provides one or more scenarios that convey how the system should interact with the end user or another system to achieve a specific business goal. Use cases typically avoid technical jargon, preferring instead the language of the end user. (Wikipedia)