project-management - Concepts

Explore concepts tagged with "project-management"

Total concepts: 35

Concepts

Second-System Effect - The tendency for an engineer's second system to be over-engineered and bloated, as the designer includes all the features and ideas left out of the first system.
Reference Class Forecasting - An estimation method that bases predictions on actual outcomes of similar past projects rather than the specifics of the current plan.
Student Syndrome - The tendency to delay starting work until the last possible moment before a deadline, even when given extra buffer time.
Scope Creep - The gradual expansion of project boundaries beyond original definitions.
Stakeholder Management - The systematic process of identifying, analyzing, and engaging project stakeholders.
The Mythical Man-Month - The Mythical Man-Month is Fred Brooks's seminal 1975 book arguing that the man-month is a dangerous myth because people and time are not interchangeable in complex software projects.
Risk Register - A structured document that records identified risks along with their analysis, treatment plans, and current status.
Wideband Delphi - A structured group estimation technique that combines anonymous individual estimates with facilitated discussion rounds.
The Tar Pit - The Tar Pit is Fred Brooks's metaphor for why large-system programming is disproportionately harder than small programs, as scaling from a program to a programming systems product multiplies effort by roughly 9x.
Burndown Chart - A visual graph showing remaining work over time to track sprint or project progress.
Surgical Team - The Surgical Team is Fred Brooks's proposed team organization where a chief programmer handles all design decisions, supported by specialists who amplify productivity while preserving conceptual integrity.
Kanban - A visual workflow management method using boards and cards.
Post-Mortem - A structured analysis conducted after a project or event to evaluate what happened and extract lessons for future improvement.
Pre-Mortem Analysis - A risk assessment technique that imagines a project has failed before it begins to identify potential causes of failure.
Scrum - An agile framework for managing complex work through iterative sprints and defined roles.
Sprint - A fixed-length iteration in Scrum where a team completes a set of committed work.
Backlog - A prioritized list of all desired work items for a product or project.
RACI Matrix - A responsibility assignment matrix: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed.
Project Charter - A foundational document that formally authorizes a project and defines its scope.
Three-Point Estimation - An estimation technique that uses optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic values to calculate a weighted expected effort.
Coordination Neglect - The tendency to underestimate the time and effort required for coordination when planning multi-person projects.
Critical Path Method - A project scheduling technique identifying the longest sequence of dependent tasks.
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) - A hierarchical decomposition of a project into smaller, manageable components.
Task Weights - Assigning abstract weight values to tasks to understand their relative size compared to other items in a backlog.
Definition of Ready - Shared criteria that must be met before a work item can be started by a team.
Waterfall Methodology - A sequential project management approach where phases flow downward like a waterfall.
Scrumban - A hybrid agile approach combining Scrum's structure with Kanban's flow-based principles.
T-Shirt Sizing - An estimation technique using clothing sizes (XS, S, M, L, XL) to categorize work items by relative effort.
Cone of Uncertainty - The principle that estimation accuracy improves as a project progresses and unknowns are resolved.
Planning Fallacy Mitigation - Strategies and techniques to combat the tendency to underestimate time, costs, and complexity in planning.
Plan to Throw One Away - Plan to Throw One Away is Brooks's advice that the first version of a system is essentially an experiment, so teams should explicitly plan for iteration rather than pretending the initial attempt will be the final product.
Brooks's Law - Brooks's Law states that adding manpower to a late software project makes it later, because of ramp-up time, communication overhead, and task indivisibility.
Iterative Development - A software development approach that builds systems through repeated cycles of planning, building, testing, and refining.
Software Estimation - The process of predicting the effort, time, or cost required to develop software, using various techniques to manage inherent uncertainty.
Agile - An iterative and collaborative approach to project management that emphasizes flexibility, customer feedback, and continuous improvement.

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