PassPM - Glossary of PM Terms

C/SCS: See Cost.
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C/SCSC: See Cost.
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Calculate Schedule: The Critical Path Method (Calculate Schedule) is a modeling process that defines all the project's critical activities which must be completed on time. The Calc tool bar button on the Gantt and PERT (found in most GUI-based PM software) windows calculates the start and finish dates of activities in the project in two passes. The first pass calculates early start and finish dates from the earliest start date forward. The second pass calculates the late start and finish activities from the latest finish date backwards. The difference between the pairs of start and finish dates for each task is the float or slack time for the task (see FLOAT). Slack is the amount of time a task can be delayed without delaying the project completion date. A great advantage of this method is the fine-tuning that can be done to accelerate the project. Shorten various critical path activities, then check the schedule to see how it is affected by the changes. By experimenting in this manner, the optimal project schedule can be determined.
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Calendar File: A file containing calendar information for one or more calendars.
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Calendars: A project calendar lists time intervals in which activities or resources can or cannot be scheduled. A project usually has one default calendar for the normal work week (Monday through Friday for example), but may have other calendars as well. Each calendar can be customized with its own holidays and extra work days. Resources and activities can be attached to any of the calendars that are defined.
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Case Structure: A breakdown of the project budget. Case numbers can be subdivided only twice to produce three levels: Case, Sub-Case, and Sub-Sub-Case.
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Change Control Board (CCB): A formally constituted group of stakeholders responsible for approving or rejecting changes to the project baselines.
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Change in Scope: See Scope Change.
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Change Requests: Change requests may arise through changes in the business or issues in the project. Change requests should be logged, assessed and agreed on before a to the project can be made. Changes may be needed to the scope, design, methods or planned aspects of a project.
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Chart of Accounts: Any numbering system, usually based on corporate chart of accounts of the primary performing organization, used to monitor project costs by category.
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Child: A lower-level element in a hierarchical structure.
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Chunk Chart: List of prioritized project work areas for a given case number and fiscal year as part of a Dept. of Energy (DOE) Defense programs (DP) Sector Project Data Document (PDD)
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Close Out: The completion of work on a project.
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Code File: A file used in reporting that contains information associated with codes entered on an activity record.
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Commitment: A binding financial obligation typically in the form of a purchase order. If commitments are entered as a budget, a forecast using the method Retain EAC can show the open commitments.
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Committed Costs: Costs that will still be incurred even if the project is terminated.
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Communication: The transmission of information so that the recipient understands what the sender intends.
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Communications Planning: Determining project stakeholders’ communication and information needs.
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Completion Date: The date calculated by which the project could finish following careful estimating.
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Compound Risk: A risk made up of a number of inter-related risks.
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Concurrent Engineering: The systematic approach to the simultaneous, integrated design of products and their related processes, such as manufacturing, testing and supporting.
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Configuration: The technical description needed to build, test, accept, operate install, maintain and support a system.
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Configuration Item: A part a of configuration that has a set function and is designated for configuration management.
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Configuration Librarian: Responsible for administering configuration management. The configuration librarian may be on a project team or have system responsibilities rather than project responsibilities.
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Configuration Management: The process of defining the configuration items in a system, controlling the release and change of those items throughout the project, recording and reporting the status of configuration items, and verifying the completeness of configuration items.
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Conflict Management: The ability to manage conflict effectively.
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Constraints: Applicable restrictions that will affect the scope of the project.
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Consumable Resource: A type of resource that remains available until consumed (for example, a material).
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Contingency: A Contingency is the planned allotment of time and cost for unforeseeable elements with a project. Including contingencies will increase the confidence of the overall project.
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Contingency Planning: The development of a management plan that uses alternative strategies to ensure project success if specified risk events occur.
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Contract: A mutually binding agreement in which the contractor is obligated to provide services or products and the buyer is obligated to provide payment for them. Contracts fall into three categories: fixed price, cost reimbursable or unit price.
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Contract Budget Base: The negotiated contract cost value plus the estimated value of authorized but unpriced work.
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Contract Close-out: Settlement of a contract.
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Contract Funds Status Report (CFSR): This report provide cost and schedule information which enables the financial manager to monitor progress and/or deviations. This reports is analyzed carefully to determine the cost and schedule status of programs and are frequently used for planning purposes. Copies of the CPR, C/SSR, and CFSR reconciliations should be kept in the program files, along with program office analyses, and analyses conducted by the Defense Contract Administrative Service Region or Plant Representative Office.
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Contract Target Cost (CTC): The negotiated costs for the original definitized contract and all contractual changes that have been definitized, but excluding the estimated cost of any authorized, unpriced changes. The CTC equals the value of the BAC plus management or contingency reserve.
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Contract Target Price (CTP): The negotiated estimated costs plus profit or fee.
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Contract Work Breakdown Structure (CWBS): A customer-prepared breakout or subdivision of a project typically down to level three which subdivides the project into all its major hardware, software, and service elements, integrates the customer and contractor effort, provides a framework for the planning, control, and reporting.
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Control: Control is the process of comparing actual performance with planned performance, analyzing the differences, and taking the appropriate corrective action.
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Control and Coordination: Control is the process of developing targets and plans; measuring actual performance and comparing it against planned performance and taking the steps to correct the situation. Coordination is the act of ensuring that work is being carried out in different organizations and places to fit together effectively in time, content and cost in order to achieve the project objectives effectively.
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Control Charts: Control charts display the results, over time, of a process. They are used to determine if the process is in need of adjustment.
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Controlling Relationship: The early dates of an activity is controlled either by a target date on the activity or, more normally, by one of the predecessor relationships. In the latter case, the relationship is called the controlling relationship.
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Coordinated Matrix: An organizational structure where the project leader reports to the functional manager and doesn’t have authority over team members from other departments.
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Corrective Action: Changes made to bring future project performance into the plan.
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Cost: Cost can be divided into internal and external expenses. External costs can be controlled by contracts and budgets for each phase of a project and for each deliverable or work product. Internal cost is the cost of project resources.
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Cost Account: A cost account is usually defined as the intersection of the program's work breakdown structure (WBS) and organizational breakdown structure (OBS). In effect, each cost account defines what work is to be performed and who will perform it. Cost accounts are the focal point for the integration of scope, cost, and schedule. Another term for Cost Account is Control Account.
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Cost Account Manager (CAM): A member of a functional organization responsible for cost account performance, and for the management of resources to accomplish such tasks.
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Cost Account Plan (CAP): The management control unit in which earned value performance measurement takes place.
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Cost Benefit Analysis: The analysis of the potential costs and benefits of a project to allow comparison of the returns from alternative forms of investment.
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Cost Breakdown Structure: A hierarchical structure that rolls budgeted resources into elements of costs, typically labor, materials and other direct costs.
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Cost Budgeting: Allocating cost estimates to individual project components.
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Cost Codes: Code assigned to activities that allow costs to be consolidated according to the elements of a code structure.
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Cost Control Point: The point within a program at which costs are entered and controlled. Frequently, the cost control point for a program is either the cost account or the work package.
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Cost Control System: Any system of keeping costs within the bounds of budgets or standards based upon work actually performed. Cost Control is typically a level in the budget element breakdown structure.
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Cost Curve: A graph plotted against a horizontal time scale and cumulative cost vertical scale.
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Cost Element: A unit of costs to perform a task or to acquire an item. The cost estimated may be a single value or a range of values.
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Cost Estimating: The process of predicting the costs of a project.
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Cost Incurred: Costs identified through the use of the accrued method of accounting or costs actually paid. Costs include direct labor, direct materials, and all allowable indirect costs.
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Cost Management: The effective financial control of the project through evaluating, estimating, budgeting, monitoring, analyzing, forecasting and reporting the cost information.
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Cost of Money: A form of indirect cost incurred by investing capital in facilities employed on government contracts.
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Cost of Quality: The cost of quality planning, control, assurance and rework.
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Cost Overrun: The amount by which a contractor exceeds or expects to exceed the estimated costs, and/or the final limitations (the ceiling) of a contract.
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Cost Performance Index (CPI): Ratio of work accomplished versus work cost incurred for a specified time period. The CPI is an efficiency rating for work accomplished for resources expended.
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Cost Performance Report (CPR): A monthly cost report generated by the performing contractor to reflect cost and schedule status information for management.
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Cost Plus Fixed Fee Contract (CPFF): A type of contract where the buyer reimburses the seller for the seller’s allowable costs plus a fixed fee.
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Cost Plus Incentive Fee Contract (CPIFC): A type of Contract where the buyer reimburses the seller for the seller's allowable costs and the seller earnes a profit if defined criteria are met.
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Cost Reimbursement Type Contracts: A category of contracts based on payments to a contractor for allowable estimated costs, normally requiring only a "best efforts" performance standard from the contractor. Risk for all growth over the estimated value rests with the project owner.
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Cost Schedule Status Report (C/SSR): The low-end cost and schedule report generally imposed on smaller value contracts, not warranting full C/SCSC.
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Cost Variance: The difference between the budgeted and actual cost of work performed.
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Cost/Schedule Control Systems Criteria (C/SCSC): Thiry-five defined standards which have been applied against private contractor management control systems since 1967 in order to insure the government that cost reimbursable and incentive type contracts are managed properly.
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Cost/Schedule Planning and Control Specification (C/SPCS): The United States Air Force inititative in the mid-1960's which later resulted in the C/SCSC.
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Crashing: The process of reducing the time it takes to complete an activity by adding resources.
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Critical Activity: An activity is termed critical when it has zero or negative float.
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Critical Path: Series of consecutive activities that represent the longest path through the project.
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Critical Path Method (CPM): A technique used to predict project duration by analyzing which sequence of activities has the least amount of scheduling flexibility. Early dates are figured by a forward pass using a specific start date and late dates are figured by using a backward starting from a completion date.
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Criticality Index: Used in risk analysis, the criticality index represents the percentage of simulation trails that resulted in the activity being placed on the critical path.
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Customer: Any person who defines needs or wants, justifies or pays for part or the entire project, or evaluates or uses the results.
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Cutoff Date: The ending date in a reporting period.
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CV: See cost variance.
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