The Ultimate Project Management Glossary: 18 Terms to Understand

If you’re not fluent in project management, you may hear some terms being thrown around and you have no idea what they mean. Look, I get it … CTAs, KPIs, QA — it’s like alphabet soup! I’m not a fan of unnecessary industry jargon, but I think there are a handful of project management terms that every business owner should know and understand. They’ll help you and your team stay on the same page, avoid any misunderstandings, and ensure your projects run a bit more smoothly!

So, before your next project kickoff meeting, familiarize yourself with these project management terms so you feel a bit more comfortable and can lead your team like a project management pro. Let’s dig in!

Action Item

Let’s start with a word you’re probably familiar with or at least can surmise the definition of. An action item is simply a fancy word for a to-do. It’s a task that must be carried out. For example, at the end of a project kickoff call, your project manager may say “Here’s the primary list of action items we need to move on ASAP.” (If I had a nickel for every time I said that throughout my career, I’d be a gazillionaire by now!) 

Approval

In project management speak, approval is signing off on the deliverable. There may be different levels of approval based on the deliverable and where you are in the project timeline — i.e. copy approval, design approval, final approval, etc.

Not all approvals have to be handled the same way throughout a project. For instance, a project may require copy, graphics, and a landing page, all completed by different people. Instead of you, the CEO, having to review and approve each element, a trusted team member might handle that approval during a specific step of the project — reviewing the elements to make sure they fit the creative brief and routing them to the next step in the project timeline. But I always recommend that the CEO be the one who looks at the overall completed project for final approval to ensure it fits the vision they have for the project and the business.

Success Tip: The next time you kick off a new project, be sure to specify who is responsible for each approval throughout the life of the project. Don’t hesitate to lean on your team and empower them to handle work-in-progress approvals so you can stay out of the weeds and alleviate your time and workload by focusing on the final approval. But be sure you give clear direction at the start of your project so your team knows what to expect and you aren’t caught with any unexpected (and frustrating) surprises when it comes to you for final approval! 

Budget

Another term you’re most likely familiar with! It’s an estimate of incoming and outgoing expenses for a period of time. Each project should have a budget, even if it’s just your team’s combined retainer fees, so you know whether you’re making, losing, or coming up even with money. You could also think of a budget in terms of non-monetary items, like a time budget (the estimated time a project will take).

Call to Action (CTA)

A call to action (CTA) encourages folks to complete a desired action or take the next step with you. When done properly, a CTA in any marketing piece combines specific language and intentional design elements to draw someone’s attention and compel them to take action in a clear, efficient way. For example: the goal of a landing page may be to collect email addresses, so the CTA would be “enter your email to download the workbook”.

Creative Brief

A creative brief, AKA: Project Brief, is the to-go spot for info about a project. It’s an internal document that houses high-level strategy, vision, goals, action items, deliverables, and schedule. It helps the team stay in alignment and understand both project objectives and how they connect to the larger brand and audience strategies.

Success Tip: Encourage your team to reference the creative brief regularly throughout the development of a project — it’ll help keep everyone in alignment and on track with strategy and project details as the project progresses and moves from one team member to the next. And each time something comes to you (or anyone on your team!) for review, pull up the Creative Brief to reference as you review. This will give you a quick refresh so the project details are fresh in your mind as you review, and will help give you an objective way to provide feedback. 

Related Reading: The 2 Branding Essentials Every Business Owner Must Know

Creative Direction

Creative direction refers to the guidance for all things creative — not to oversimplify it, but think words and pictures. The creative direction guides the whole look and feel of the project, so it’s a critical piece in the project management process. Creative direction should be based on 3 key things — your brand strategy, the specifications for the final deliverable, and last but not least, your subjective preferences. 

Your brand strategy — what instruction can you provide to make sure your copy and graphics align with your brand position, your target audience, your value proposition, and your key messages? 

The specifications for the final deliverable — are there any unique considerations your writer, designer, developer, video producer, etc. need to keep in mind to make sure your final deliverable is optimized with whatever medium it’s designed for? I.e. is your website optimized for the best user experience? Is your print ad legible and in the right size/format? Is your video going to fit within the required timeframe and file format? You get it.

Your subjective preferences — what can you tell your team to let them know what you do, and DON’T, expect to see? Do you love the color purple? Do you hate serif fonts? Do you cringe every time you see a cheesy meme? Share all of these subjective preferences with your team upfront to minimize any guesswork! 

Deliverable

A deliverable is a piece of collateral, big or small, produced by your team for your project — it’s the final “thing” (for lack of a better word) that you’re creating. For example: a graphic on a website and the website itself are deliverables of a project whose goal is “create landing page for Amazing New Launch”.

Related Reading: Project Kickoff Meeting: 7 Essentials for Successful Projects

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

A key performance indicator, AKA: KPI, is a measurement of performance. It’s a meric that objectively helps evaluate the success of a project and helps you make better decisions in the future. You can set your KPIs to be whatever you want, but they’re typically centered on revenue, profit, customer satisfaction and retention, and growth metrics.

Success Tip: Setting your KPIs is only the first step! It’s pointless to set your performance indicators if you’re not going to measure them. So after you launch or complete your project, make sure you have a plan in place to keep track of your KPIs. Then, optimize or course correct as needed if you find you’re not meeting your performance goals like you hoped or planned for! 

Kickoff Meeting

Aptly named, a kickoff meeting is a meeting held prior to working on a new project. This is the time to discuss creative direction, deliverables, KPIs, budget, schedule, routing, and strategy. At the end of the kickoff meeting, you should have a list of action items as well as how your project fits within the overall strategy of your business. And, your team should also have a clear understanding of how they can support this project and what their roles and responsibilities along the way are! 

Related Reading: Project Kickoff Meeting: 7 Essentials for Successful Projects

Project Management

Project management refers to leading elements of a project to meet project goals. Project management makes sure everything is on time, on budget, and on strategy so the final deliverable meets your big vision and goals you have for your business. But, it’s often more than just staying on top of schedules and budgets. Your project manager often serves as the central hub for your projects, disseminating info to the proper people, keeping everyone in the loop, and helping your team to run as smoothly and efficiently as possible! 

Proofreading

Go back to your 5th grade English class and you’ll remember proofreading (or the thing you skipped when you turned in a paper right at the deadline. Not me, of course… I didn’t do that.) This term refers to reading over the deliverables and marking any errors. Things like grammar, spacing, alignment, typos, etc. … basically alllllll of the nit-picky things you need to keep an eagle eye out for before you finalize your project so you don’t end up on the next list of “proofreading fails.” 

Success Tip: When you or someone on your team is proofreading your final project before you call it complete, go beyond trolling for typos to do another high-level review of your piece to make sure it still aligns with your brand strategy and matches everything you outlined in your Creative Brief and Kickoff Meeting. 

Quality Assurance (QA)

Quality assurance (QA), AKA: Quality Testing, is a final check before things are released to the public to ensure it’s all functioning, meets standards, and does what it says it’ll do. Nothing is worse than getting an email saying “Um I signed up for this workbook and I didn’t get it.”

Trust me, I’ve seen that (and more pressing issues!) that could have easily been addressed with a simple test. A quality assurance check ensures you catch any snags and are able to correct them so your project launch goes smoothly.

Success Tip: Make sure you have at least one other person besides yourself help with QA on a final digital project. You might miss things, so it’s important to have another set of eyes to catch something you didn’t. And, don’t forget to put yourself in the mind of your target audience while you’re testing!

Reviews

If a deliverable is “in review,” that means that it’s with the person who needs to give approval before it moves onto the next step of the process. Each step of the process should have a review period so you aren’t at the finish line only to realize you have to go back and fix something that should have been addressed at the first baton handoff.

Routing

Routing is like a workflow that shows what needs to be done and when by whom. I think of it like a big train station with many tracks so a train can be directed to a different track or destination at the press of a lever. (Can you tell I’m a boy mom?) The more complex and layered the project, the more train tracks, or routing points, you’ll need to juggle.

For example, an email marketing your new launch will go from the copywriter, then be routed to a project manager for approval, then be routed to your VA for testing where you give final approval of everything before it’s scheduled in your email software. 

Success Tip: When you’re creating your project schedule, make sure you know who all will be involved in your project and when/how you want to route it to them in the process. This will help you make sure you have the right steps, and the right corresponding timing, in your timeline! 

Schedule

Your schedule or timeline for your project is the step-by-step process with corresponding dates for each step in your project. It outlines when it will start, when each step of the project will occur, and ultimately, when the project is due. It is typically set during your project kickoff meeting and takes into consideration timing constraints such as:

• Project milestones
• Scope and deliverables
• Each person’s turnaround times
• Review time
• Time for revisions
• Final proofreading
• Testing and quality assurance
• Unexpected hiccups (AKA buffer time)

Related Reading: Two-Minute Tip: 3 Things You’re Missing In Your Project Schedules — Koree Ritter Consulting

Scope

Scope refers to the scope of work your team needs to do in order to complete a project. It’s the full overview of the project including deliverables and other expected output. It also outlines the amount of work that is anticipated for the project — reviews, revisions, deliverables, versions, etc. It takes into consideration goals, deliverables, budget, etc, so it stays on schedule.

Success Tip: Think of it like a restaurant. The servers, managers, chefs, and bartenders have all come together to carefully craft (or scope out) an experience for you that encompasses the vibe, the menu (including what’s on it, how much it costs to make, etc), the drinks, how long they expect patrons to be there per meal, what happens if someone sends a dish back, and so on.

Scope Creep

Scope creep, AKA: creep, is what happens when project needs evolve (or snowball!) and more work than proposed needs to be taken on in order to meet the goals of the project.

Scope creep can also be more subtle than that. For example: a team member takes on more responsibilities or deliverables than stated in their contract under the guise of the project scope, only to realize that the client is asking for more than they’re paying for. Or, the project starts as 1 version of a landing page, only to evolve into 3 separate versions throughout the life of the project. 

Success Tip: Scope creep can happen in big and obvious ways, but it can also happen really subtly throughout a project, too — so it’s not always an intentional thing! Just keep in mind that each time the scope creeps (or increases), that could impact your timing, budget, team availability, etc.! 

Related Reading: Project Management Basics, Part 2 – 6 Core Elements Every Project Needs

Strategy

Strategy is the foundation of anything you do. It’s one of the most important parts of a project and should be integrated into each step of it. Depending on where you are in the project management process, you may need to address audience strategy, brand strategy, messaging strategy, etc. of your project itself before you or your team can move onto the next steps in the project, like creative direction and/or action items.

When integrated and centralized into your project, this strategic plan becomes the core of a successful project (and business!) because everything you do gets measured against the strategy to ensure it’s aligned to your expectations and visions for what you’re doing.

Everyone on your team should understand the strategy and how it’ll be executed in the project from a micro and a macro level. I.e. your team should understand your audience strategy (micro) so they can create deliverables that align with the overall KPIs and other goals of the company (macro).

This internal strategy serves as a compass by which you measure all of your deliverables so everything is consistent and meets the expectations outlined in the creative brief during the kickoff call.

Long story short, having a strategy will help you gain the clarity and cohesion you need to efficiently reach your goals. When you add in thoughtful and deliberate project management, you’ll have a clear path to achieve those goals. You must have strategy in order to have impactful action. 

Related Reading: 4 Reasons to Integrate Brand Strategy and Project Management

Now that you know some of the terms you may hear during the project management process, you’re well on your way to better understanding and communicating with your project manager and team. You’re ready to move onto Project Management Basics, Part 2 – 6 Core Elements Every Project Needs!