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| Acceptance Management
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The process by which deliverables produced by a project are reviewed and accepted by the customer.
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| Acceptance Planning
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The process of identifying and scheduling a suite of tests to measure the completion of project deliverables against stated criteria.
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| Accountability
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The obligation to report on one's actions.
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| Activity
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Any work performed on a project. May be synonymous with task but in some cases it may be a specific level in the WBS (e.g., a phase is broken down into a set of activities, activities into a set of tasks). An activity must have duration and will result in one or more deliverables. An activity will generally have cost and resource requirements. See Task.
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| Activity
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An activity is an individual task needed for the completion of a project. It is the smallest discrete block of time and resources typicallay handled by PM software. It is a single task which needs to be done in a project. Multiple activities are related to each other by identifying their immediate predecessors. Solitary activities, which have no predecessors or successors, are allowed. Most PM software packages are precedence-based systems which analyze schedules based on the activity relationships that are specified. Activities can also be called work packages, tasks, or deliverables.
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| Activity
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A group of tasks undertaken to produce a tangible project deliverable.
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| Activity Duration
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Activity duration specifies the length of time (hours, days, weeks, months) that it takes to complete an activity. This information is optional in the data entry of an activity. Work flow (predecessor relationships) can be defined before durations are assigned. Activities with zero durations are considered milestones (milestone value of 1 to 94) or hammocks (milestone value of 95 to 99).
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| Actual Dates
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Actual dates are entered as the project progresses. These are the dates that activities really started and finished as opposed to planned or projected dates.
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| Actuals
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The cost or effort incurred in the performance of tasks. Also, the dates tasks have been started or completed and the dates milestones have been reached.
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| Analogous Estimating
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Estimating using similar projects or activities as a basis for determining the effort, cost and/or duration of a current one. Usually used in Top-down Estimating.
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| Assumption
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Something taken as true without proof. In planning, assumptions regarding staffing, complexity, learning curves and many other factors are made to create plan scenarios. These provide the basis for estimating. Remember, assumptions are not facts. Make alternative assumptions to get a sense of what might happen in your project.
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| Authority
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The ability to get other people to act based on your decisions. Authority is generally based on the perception that a person has been officially empowered to issue binding orders. See Power.
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