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Our podcast today will be about managing projects and we’re going to learn some useful vocabulary on this topic. Let’s start, shall we?

When we talk about project management we immediately think of the project manager (PM), who’s the person responsible for the planning and management of the project.

Now, one very important person in a project is the sponsor. A sponsor is the person who provides funding for the project, approves changes and supports the project in the company. One of the sponsor’s role is to provide guidance and let the project manager deal with day-to-day issues.

Now let’s move on to another word: stakeholder. Basically, a stakeholder is a person who is involved in an organization (internally or externally) and has responsibilities towards the carrying out of a project in some way.

A subcontractor is a person or company that does part of a job for someone or another company. They are hired to help the project go faster and more effectively, usually in building works and civil engineering. They’re often hired to reduce costs or mitigate project risks.

A very common word in project management is scope. Scope means the things that a particular activity, company, organization etc., deals with. In project management, a preliminary project scope statement specifies the goals of the project, the resources needed and describe the expected end results.

Our next word is deliverable. Deliverable is something that can be achieved as the result of a process, plan or project. A deliverable may be a physical object, a new product or the completion of a project.

Specifications is our next word. Specifications is usually abbreviated to specs. Specifications are a set of requirements (technical, time and cost) and detailed descriptions of the deliverables. We can say that a certain product doesn’t meet our specifications.

Our last and very useful word for project management is baseline. A baseline refers to a set of standards (time, cost, schedule, etc.) for a project which come from previous experience and are used to assess the project’s progress. We also have the expression baseline expectation.

This is it for today people, see you next time.

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