Essential terms and definitions for understanding and implementing the Project Mechanics methodology.
A
Accepted Limitation
A known gap the product owner has decided to live with, such as "if promotion fails, retry it." It's recorded as a decision on the scope boundary, and the team doesn't build features to remove it. See Project Management.
Accountability
Accountability is when an individual is the ultimate point of responsibility for the successful completion of a task or assignment. In other words, "The buck stops here."
Analytic Contract
The agreement, made before a sprint closes, about how a feature will be observed in production: which fields or events carry the signal, and which of them reports depend on. Those fields then change only with notice. See Product Management.
Authority
For decisions to be made, authority must be granted to individuals. Authority is the power that enables individuals to provide directions and structure to others. The levels of authority should be well defined before any project effort, particularly when the organization participating in the effort utilizes a flat organization structure. In this case, individuals cannot defer to titles and established hierarchical structure to determine degrees of authority.
B
Benefits Realization
Confirming, after delivery, that a project produced the outcome its proposal promised, and feeding any gap back into how future proposals are selected. See Portfolio & Program Management.
Business Owner
The person who pays for the work, defines what success means and owns the business risk decision. In consulting this is the client. In an internal project it's the executive or department that expects a return on the investment.
C
Chargeability
The Chargeability percentage is the number of billable hours divided by a standard 40/hr week. (i.e. 40 hours billed is 100% chargeable, 20 hours is 50% chargeable)
Confidence Level
The probability that an estimate will hold, written as P50, P70 or P90. A P70 estimate is one the team expects to meet seven times out of ten. Quote estimates as a range with a confidence level, not as a single date.
D
D−n Checkpoint
A decision point counted in working days before a release, where D0 is deployment day. D−5, for example, is five working days out. Each checkpoint on the release clock has a specific conversation attached to it. See Sprint & Release Management.
Decision Rights
The written split of which decisions a person makes alone, which they make after consulting someone, and which they escalate. Delegation without decision rights leaves accountability without authority. See Project Leadership.
Definition of Done
The conditions a piece of work has to meet before it counts as finished. Project Mechanics extends the usual coding, testing and deployment conditions with one more: the outcome the work was meant to produce is measured, or a date is set to measure it.
Delivery Lead
The person who runs the mechanics of a project: the life cycle, the kickoff, the release clock and the release briefing. In a traditional structure this is the project manager.
E
Escalation
Taking a decision to someone with more authority, in writing, with the options, the evidence for each, a recommendation and the date the decision is needed. An escalation that arrives as a phone call and a feeling moves the conflict up a level without resolving it. See Conflict Management.
Exit Condition
A condition written in advance that makes the team stop and re-plan, such as "if the redesign requires changing the order schema, stop." Every risky slice and every system replacement needs one.
Expedited Release
A deployment outside the normal release schedule, accepted because waiting would cost more than the extra operational risk. It's reserved for production defects causing real harm and for validated features whose delay costs more than an off-cycle deployment. It never carries enhancements that skipped validation.
F
Fast Follow
A change taken out of a planned release so it can finish validation, then shipped a few days later in its own small release. It's the default path for a late defect that causes no financial or compliance harm.
Feedback Failure
One of the three failure modes. The team builds what was specified and never finds out whether it worked, because success is declared at delivery instead of at impact. See Methodology.
Fix Readiness Gate
The checklist a fix passes before anyone discusses when to release it: confirmed root cause, independent review, known change scope, passing tests including a regression test, a checked rollback plan, a build artifact, and production telemetry. If any item is unanswered, the fix isn't ready.
H
Hotfix
A fix for a defect found in production. A hotfix can reach production by any of the three release paths, and calling something a hotfix doesn't make it an expedited release.
O
On-time
When deliverables are produced on the schedule communicated to the customer. This communicated time can be the original date, or a mutually determined revised date.
Outcome
The measurable change a project is meant to produce in the business, stated with a measure, a baseline, a target and a date. An outcome is what changes; a feature is what gets built.
Output
What a team produces: features, stories completed, releases shipped. Output can be counted the day it ships, but it doesn't say whether the business is better off.
Ownership Ambiguity
One of the three failure modes. Nobody knows who makes the final call, authority and accountability sit in different hands, and decisions get made where nobody owns the result. See Methodology.
P
PMO
The Program Management Office: the group that runs project intake and selection, maintains Project Mechanics standards, coaches delivery leads and produces portfolio reporting. It owns the practice, not the projects' decisions.
Portfolio
All the projects an organization is funding or considering, managed together so they can be compared, ranked against staffing capacity and checked for the benefits they promised.
Product Owner
The person who owns the order of the backlog and can trace each item to the outcome it serves. The product owner decides release scope at D−5 and may be the business owner or act on the business owner's behalf.
Program
A set of projects that serve one business outcome, run together under one owner so their dependencies, risks and release dates line up.
Project Charter
A document to ensure that the project work plan lists all tasks necessary to deliver the scope of work that was sold. Ensure that the customer is referenceable during and after the project.
Project End
A project ends when the mutually recognized solution has been reached, tested, reviewed, and finalized. Only after project-closing procedures have been completed does the project truly end.
Project Management
Project Management is a set of principles, methods, and techniques for effectively planning, organizing, directing, and controlling projects.
Project Mechanics
The methodology described on these pages: a project life cycle shared by every project, named owners for each decision, and practices aimed at the three failure modes of ownership ambiguity, scope drift and feedback failure.
Project Start
A project begins when a particular need is identified, and the necessity for further investigation of that need is authorized.
Project Team
A Project Team is temporary organization comprised of varying resources. This organization is guided by a set of well-defined objectives and confined by a structure of cost, schedule, and quality parameters. Specifically, in the consulting environment a project will likely include both client and consultant personnel working together to achieve a well-defined objective intended to serve the client.
Q
Quality
To be considered a quality solution, a system must meet or exceed customer expectations in respect to its usability, scalability, and maintainability.
R
Realization Rate
The Realization rate is a measure of the ability to get paid for recorded hours and takes into account hours that had to be written off. It is a dollar per hour number and calculated by taking the total dollars paid by the total hours charged to a project.
Release Clock
The set of D−n checkpoints counted back from a release, each with the decision that has to be made by then. It makes visible when options start to disappear. See Sprint & Release Management.
Residual Risk
The risk that remains after testing and mitigation, which someone has to accept before a change ships.
Responsibility
The obligation incurred by individuals in their roles in formal organizations in order to effectively performs assignments. Ultimately, Project Managers are responsible for the work of all individuals performing tasks under their supervision, but each individual assigned a task has the specific responsibility for the attainment of a quality completion of the task.
Risk Acceptance
A written record that names who accepted a residual risk, what the technical assessment said at the time, and which path was chosen. It's required whenever a release path is chosen against engineering's advice.
Rollover
Work planned for a sprint that moves into the next one. Rollover is a signal to examine, because either the forecast was wrong or circumstances changed.
S
Scheduled Release
The planned deployment at the end of a sprint or release cycle. A change belongs in it when it has passed the fix readiness gate and has regression evidence; the calendar alone doesn't make it ready.
Scope Drift
One of the three failure modes. The project starts toward one destination and arrives somewhere else, because requirements moved without anyone deciding to move them. See Methodology.
Scope Freeze
The point, usually D−5, after which release scope can only shrink. Regression results after the freeze can take work out of a release but can't add work to it.
Spike
A short, time-boxed investigation that turns an unknown into a known, usually to firm up an estimate or test an assumption before the team commits to a design.
Sponsor
The person with the authority to fund a project or a change and to absorb the pushback it draws. A sponsor decides whether work starts, whether a proposal is approved, and whether a project is cancelled.
T
Turtling
Stopping the search for a way through an obstacle and waiting for someone else to solve it, while still explaining clearly why the work is blocked. A blocked person is still searching; a turtling one has stopped. See Project Leadership.
U
Utilization
The Utilization percentage is the total number of non-administrative hours against a standard. The use of utilization was to measure how much work a consultant is doing using both internal and external projects. You do not factor in Admin, Sick, or Vacation time into utilization.
W
Within Budget
A project is within budget when costs do not exceed the previously agreed upon amount for delivery of the solution.