Project Management and Agile Methodologies

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the core concepts, models, governance structures, planning techniques, and agile frameworks from the Project Management course lecture.

RACE Framework

A prompt engineering model consisting of Role (who the AI should be), Action (the specific verb/task), Context (background information and constraints), and Expectation (desired output format, tone, and length).

Project

A temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end, undertaken by a temporary organization with a dedicated budget to deliver a unique product, service, or result.

Functional Hierarchical Organization

An organizational structure arranged by specialized departments (such as R&D, marketing, and HR) where authority increases upward through the hierarchy, line managers hold decision-making power, and projects are treated as exceptions.

Matrix Organization

An organizational structure where employees report functionally to line managers while working horizontally across line boundaries on cross-functional project teams.

Weak Matrix

A form of matrix organization where line managers retain primary decision-making authority and hierarchical reporting dominates, leaving the project manager with low status and limited authority.

Strong Matrix

A form of matrix organization where line managers only decide overall goals and high-level resources, leaving the majority of operational decisions and project details to the project manager.

Project-Based Organization

An organizational model where projects operate separately from line operations, and resource competition across concurrent projects is coordinated through centralized portfolio management and resource planning.

Network-Based Organization

An organizational structure where a core firm collaborates remotely over digital networks with external partners and suppliers who provide complementary competencies that the firm lacks internally.

Flow-Based Organization

An organizational structure where change management, development, and maintenance are organized into continuous value streams handled by permanent, self-organizing teams within agile release trains.

Project Portfolio

A centralized collection of projects and programs prioritized by senior management to align investments with long-term strategic goals ("doing the right things").

Program Management

The coordinated management of a group of related projects and activities to achieve synergistic benefits and business value that could not be achieved by running them individually.

General Project Model

A standardized stage-gate project model consisting of an initial Idea stage, four main project phases (Feasibility study, Planning, Execution, and Closure), formal decision points ($\text{BP1}$ through $\text{BP6}$), and post-project Effect realization.

Decision Point (Beslutspunkt)

A formal gate where the project owner and steering committee pause to review progress against governance documents and decide whether to proceed, adjust, or cancel the project.

Project Owner (Projektägare)

The commissioner and sponsor who possesses overall accountability for the project, chairs the steering committee, allocates resources, appoints the project manager, and ensures benefit realization.

Steering Committee (Styrgrupp)

A governing board appointed and led by the project owner that reviews work, ensures alignment with organizational strategy, and makes binding gate decisions at decision points.

Resource Owner (Resursägare)

A line manager who has administrative responsibility for personnel and equipment borrowed by a project, ensuring staff development and signing internal resource agreements.

Project Charter (Uppdragsbeskrivning)

A foundational governance document that establishes the commission, outlining the project's background, objectives, scope, sponsor, timeline, and preliminary budget framework.

Business Case

An investment assessment document created to demonstrate why a proposed project is worth undertaking, evaluating economic profitability, feasibility, risks, and strategic benefits.

Zeigarnik Effect

A psychological principle established by Bluma Zeigarnik in 1927 demonstrating that uncompleted tasks occupy working memory and are remembered better than completed tasks until they are finished and moved to "Done".

Predictable Life Cycle

A traditional linear project life cycle where phases (Analysis, Design, Development, Test, Delivery) run sequentially; optimal when requirements are clear and stable, offering tight cost control but deferring tangible results until final delivery.

Incremental Life Cycle

A project delivery life cycle where requirements are known upfront, but the work is split into successive functional releases so users receive working deliverables and early business benefits throughout the schedule.

Iterative Life Cycle

A project life cycle used when requirements are unclear, where deliverables are repeatedly revised and refined through feedback loops across analysis, design, and testing before a single final delivery.

Adaptive Life Cycle

An agile project approach combining iterative refinement with incremental releases to discover requirements dynamically and deliver working functionality in short, frequent steps.

Agile Manifesto

A foundational statement written in 2001 that values individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan.

Kanban Board

A visual workflow management tool derived from the Toyota Production System that displays tasks across columns (typically Planned, In Progress, and Done) to limit work in progress and enhance team focus.

Scrum Master

A servant-leader role in Scrum responsible for coaching the team, removing impediments, facilitating events, and ensuring the team adheres to agile methodology and rules.

Product Owner

The Scrum role responsible for defining what to build, maximizing product value, and maintaining and prioritizing the Product Backlog according to customer needs.

Sprint

A fixed-duration timebox (usually 1 to 4 weeks) in Scrum during which the team creates a complete, potentially shippable increment of product functionality.

User Story

A requirement formatted from the perspective of an end-user: "As a , I want , so that ," serving as a conversation starter rather than an exhaustive specification.

Definition of Done (DoD)

A shared, formal checklist of criteria that a backlog item must satisfy before it can be considered finished and incorporated into a releasable increment.

Burndown Chart

A sprint tracking visual that plots remaining effort (such as story points) across sprint days, allowing the team to compare their actual completion rate against an ideal downward trend line.

Velocity

The average amount of work (measured in story points) that a Scrum team delivers per sprint, used to forecast future sprint capacity and planning.

Sprint Review

A collaborative meeting held at the end of a sprint where the development team demonstrates completed work to the Product Owner and external stakeholders for direct feedback.

Sprint Retrospective

An internal inspection meeting held at the end of a sprint where the team reflects on its processes, communication, and tools to identify concrete action items for continuous improvement.

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

An enterprise scaling framework that synchronizes multiple agile teams across four hierarchical levels: Portfolio, Large Solutions, Program, and Team.

Big Room Planning

A face-to-face planning event where all teams in an Agile Release Train (ART) align on objectives, map dependencies, and establish a synchronized delivery plan for the next 3 to 6 months.

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

The most pared-down version of a deliverable that still contains enough functionality to satisfy early adopters and gather validated learning with minimal effort.

Project Positioning Map

A two-dimensional matrix that categorizes candidate projects based on Strategic Value versus Economic Value into four quadrants: Value-enhancing, Infrastructure, Rationalizing, and Mandatory.

Project Goal (Projektmål)

The tangible product, service, or outcome that the project must deliver at a specified point in time (answering WHAT the project creates).

Effect Goal (Effektmål / Syfte)

The strategic benefit and operational improvement realized when the project deliverable is put into use by the organization or customer after project handover (answering WHY the project exists).

SMART(A) Criteria

A goal formulation framework requiring objectives to be Specific (Specifikt), Measurable (Mätbart), Delimited (Avgränsat), Realistic (Realiserbart), Time-bound (Tidsatt), and Accepted (Accepterat).

Project Triangle

A constraint model demonstrating the trade-offs between Quality (or Scope), Time (Deadline), and Resources (Investment), where altering any one parameter inevitably impacts the other two.

Expected Monetary Value (EMV)

A statistical decision-making tool calculated by multiplying the probability of each potential outcome by its monetary payoff and summing the results ($\text{EMV} = \sum (\text{Probability} \times \text{Value})$).

Design Thinking

A human-centered innovation method used when requirements are uncertain, progressing through five iterative stages: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

A hierarchical, deliverable-oriented breakdown that visualizes all the work packages required to achieve the project objective, defining WHAT is included without prescribing task sequence.

100% Rule

The foundational WBS rule stating that the breakdown must encompass 100% of the project scope, meaning that the sum of subordinate work packages at each level must exactly equal their parent package.

SWOT Analysis

A situational analysis matrix cross-referencing internal Strengths and Weaknesses with external Opportunities and Threats; threats that cannot be matched by strengths represent critical project risks.

PENG Model

A Swedish benefits valuation framework (Prioritering Efter NyttoGrunder) that divides anticipated project outcomes into Green (direct, easily quantified), Yellow (indirect, harder to quantify), and Red (speculative, intangible) benefits.

MoSCoW Prioritization

A requirements prioritization system that sorts items into Must have (mandatory for launch), Should have (important but non-critical), Could have (desirable if time permits), and Won't have (deferred to later).

Core Stakeholders (Kärnintressenter)

The internal project leadership roles that hold decision-making, management, or executive authority over project work, corresponding to governance roles in ISO 21500.

Stakeholder Attitude Matrix

A stakeholder mapping tool assessing attitude (Positive vs. Negative) against engagement (Active vs. Passive) to identify Ambassadors, the Grey Gold, Antagonists, and covert Snipers (Krypskyttar).

Mendelow's Matrix

A stakeholder power-interest matrix that determines communication tactics: Key Players (high power, high interest), Keep Satisfied (high power, low interest), Keep Informed (low power, high interest), and Minimal Effort (low power, low interest).

Kolb's Learning Cycle

A cyclical learning framework that models experiential learning through four stages: Concrete Experience (Active), Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualization (Theoretical), and Active Experimentation (Pragmatic).

Planning Chain (Planeringskedja)

The 9-step planning progression divided between the feasibility phase (Purpose/Goals, WBS, Requirement check, Rough plan) and the detailed planning phase (Activity plan, Estimation, Schedule, Resource histogram, Budget).

Critical Path

The sequence of dependent project activities that forms the longest continuous path from start to finish, determining the shortest possible duration to complete the project with zero float.

Float (Glapp)

The amount of spare calendar time that a non-critical activity can slip or be delayed without postponing the mandatory project deadline.

Lag

A mandatory delay or waiting duration imposed between the completion of a predecessor task and the start of a successor task (such as concrete curing or paint drying).

Lead (Fast Tracking)

A schedule acceleration technique that overlaps dependent tasks by starting a successor activity before the preceding activity has completely concluded.

Crashing

A schedule compression technique where additional resources are assigned to the cheapest tasks on the critical path to shorten total project duration.

PERT Estimation

A probabilistic three-point estimation method calculating expected duration via $T_e = \frac{\text{Optimistic} + 4\times\text{Most likely} + \text{Pessimistic}}{6}$ and standard deviation via $\sigma = \frac{\text{Pessimistic} - \text{Optimistic}}{6}$.

Resource Histogram

A bar chart displaying resource requirements per day or week against a maximum resource capacity line to highlight resource clashes that necessitate leveling.

Resource Leveling (Resursutjämning)

The scheduling adjustment of non-critical tasks within their available float to eliminate peak over-allocations and smooth out resource demand.

Rolling Wave Planning (Rullande närzonsplanering)

An incremental scheduling technique where immediate, near-term work is planned in granular detail while future work is kept at a high-level summary until more information emerges.

Resource Contract (Resurskontrakt)

A formal internal agreement signed between the project manager, the assigned team member, and their functional line manager (resource owner) specifying work scope, hours, duration, and billing rate.

Zone of Possible Agreement (Förhandlingszon)

The bargaining range that exists between the buyer's maximum acceptable walk-away price and the seller's minimum acceptable reservation price.