CSC 402/405/406
Project Management Terms

Note the table showing the relationship between action items, jobs and tasks at the end of this page.

• Action Item
  An action item is a small task but is:
      Always accepted by an individual.
      Is of short duration.
      Is too small to be scheduled in the project plan.
      Rarely produces a deliverable.
  

• Deliverable
  A milestone (e.g. software, document) that will be released outside the development organization.
  Often, deliverables must be signed by a customer or QA organization.
  Deliverables are always graded/approved by your instructor.
  

• Gantt Chart
  A graphical view of tasks and milestones; Gantt charts are widely used by software project managers.

• Job or Role
  A responsibility accepted by one or more people. A job may or may not correspond to a task but is visible to the project team.
  Examples:
  The analyst and coffee maker have jobs; these jobs aren't usually tasks.
  

• Leader
  The person responsible for one of more tasks; the leader has many responsibilities

• Milestone
  A specific, concrete, measurable event that describes the completion of something meaningful. Milestones have no time dimension; they happen in an instant.
  Good examples:
      Requirements document signed by user.
      C1 coverage test level has reached 85%.
  

  Bad examples:
      Software is 80% done.
      Testing has started.
  

• Project Plan
  A formal document that plans the tasks and milestones of an project; often the entire project plan is defined in a Gantt Chart.

• Release Criteria
  A list of milestones that specify when a project is complete.
  The list should be written and approved early in the project life cycle.

• Task
  A body of work that has specific, measurable completion criteria. A task always ends with milestones or deliverables; it may also have intermediate milestones. A task is highly visible; it always has a start date and end date.

Relationship between Action Items, Jobs and Tasks

	Attributes	Assigned to	Tracked by
Action Item	Due date Milestone Low visibility outside team Small granularity	One Person	Status reports Team leader
Task	Due date Generates N action items Finishes with one or more deliverables Major visibility Large granularity	Specific invididual(s)	Project plan Manager
Job	No specific due dates Generates action items Constant milestones High visibility Project lifetime granularity	One Person	Team leader Clients