Glossary
ActiveCollab Glossary
Every important term explained.
1-3-5 Rule
Productivity method that prioritizes 1 big task, 3 medium tasks, and 5 small tasks daily to improve focus and efficiency.
ABCDE Method
Task prioritization system that ranks activities from highest to lowest importance to focus effort where it delivers the most value.
Asynchronous Communication
Information exchange with a time delay between sending and receiving, allowing responses on each participant’s schedule.
Agile Marketing
Flexible, data-driven approach that applies agile principles to help teams adapt quickly, work iteratively, and deliver faster results.
Agile Project Management
Iterative, flexible approach that delivers work in short cycles, emphasizing collaboration, adaptability, and continuous improvement.
Adizes Corporate Lifecycle
Model outlining the stages of organizational growth and decline, helping leaders sustain balance and long-term success.
Adaptive Project Management
Iterative, client-driven approach that thrives on change, learning, and flexibility—continuously adjusting project scope and methods to maximize business value.
Backlog Refinement
Ongoing process of reviewing, clarifying, and prioritizing product backlog items to keep teams focused and sprints efficient.
Bus Factor
Metric of how many people are critical to a project’s success, revealing risks when knowledge is concentrated in too few individuals.
Burnout
State of chronic exhaustion and reduced motivation caused by prolonged stress or overwork, harming both well-being and performance.
Budget Overrun
When a project’s actual costs exceed the planned budget.
Burndown Chart
Visual project management tool that tracks remaining work against time to show progress and forecast completion.
Burnup Chart
Visual tool that shows completed work versus total scope, making progress and scope changes easy to track over time.
Billable Hours
Hours spent on client-related tasks that can be charged and invoiced.
Billability
Measures the portion of working time that can be billed to clients, helping organizations track efficiency, profitability, and resource allocation.
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Cost-benefit analysis is the process of weighing a project's costs against its expected benefits to evaluate its overall value and viability.
Cross-Functional Teams
Group of professionals from different departments who collaborate to achieve a shared project goal.
Collaboration
Process of actively working together, sharing ideas and resources to achieve a common goal more effectively.
Client Onboarding
Structured process of integrating new clients, setting expectations, and building trust to ensure long-term agency success.
Clique
Exclusive, close-knit group that often excludes others, which in the workplace can harm inclusivity and team morale.
Culture Fit
Alignment between an employee’s values and a company’s culture, ensuring they contribute positively while supporting diversity and growth.
Contingency Plan
Backup strategy that defines how to respond to unexpected risks or events in order to keep the project on track.
Capacity Planning
Process of evaluating whether your team has the time, skills, and resources to deliver current and future projects without overloading them.
Dependencies
Task-to-task relationships that determine the order and timing of project activities.
Eisenhower Matrix
Method for prioritizing tasks by urgency and importance to focus on what matters most and reduce time spent on low-value work.
Employee Engagement
Level of commitment, motivation, and connection employees feel toward their work, colleagues, and organization.
Eat The Frog Method
Productivity technique that prioritizes tackling your hardest, most important task first to prevent procrastination and boost motivation.
ERP Systems
Software that integrate and automate core business processes across departments, enabling seamless data sharing and efficiency.
E-invoicing
Digital exchange of structured invoices that automate processing, reduce costs, and improve tax compliance and transparency.
Extreme Project Management
Flexible, improvisational approach for high-change, high-uncertainty projects, focusing on experimentation, learning, and adapting rather than rigid planning.
Employee Utilization Rate
Shows the percentage of an employee’s available time that is used productively, helping organizations balance efficiency, capacity, and workload.
Feasibility Study
A feasibility study is a detailed analysis that evaluates a project’s viability, risks, and benefits to determine if it’s worth pursuing.
Fast Tracking
Practice of overlapping project tasks that are normally sequential in order to shorten the overall timeline without changing scope.
Float
Amount of time a task can be delayed without affecting the project’s overall schedule or dependent tasks.
Gantt Chart
Visual project timeline that maps tasks, durations, and dependencies to keep schedules on track.
Histogram
Bar chart that visualizes the distribution of project data—like tasks, costs, or resources—helping managers spot patterns and imbalances.
Interdepartmental Communication
Flow of information and resources between departments to align goals, improve efficiency, and foster collaboration.
Iterative Process
Cyclical approach to development that refines a product through repeated feedback and improvements.
Jacobs Method
Scheduling technique that combines task dependencies with resource availability to create more realistic project timelines.
Kanban
Visual workflow method that uses boards and work-in-progress limits to make work transparent, reduce bottlenecks, and improve flow.
Lean Principles
Methods for reducing waste and improving efficiency to deliver more value with fewer resources.
MoSCoW Method
Prioritization system that ranks tasks or requirements as must have, should have, could have, or won’t have to guide efficient decision-making.
Nominal Group Technique
Structured decision-making method that ensures equal participation, gathers diverse ideas, and prioritizes them through group consensus.
Organizational Culture
The set of shared values and behaviors that define how work gets done and how people interact within a company.
Push Communication
Proactive delivery of information from sender to recipient, typically aimed at a broad audience to ensure key messages are received without requiring a request.
Pull Communication
A recipient-initiated method of accessing information that has been made available but not directly delivered.
Project Requirements
Specific features, goals, and conditions a project must fulfill to be considered complete and successful.
Project Roadmap
A high-level visual plan that outlines a project’s major phases, milestones, and goals over time.
Problem Framing
Process of defining a challenge from both business and customer perspectives to identify its core causes and guide effective solutions.
Project Baseline
Benchmark document used to track a project’s progress against its original scope, schedule, and budget.
Project Initiation Phase
Stage where a project’s purpose, value, and feasibility are defined to gain stakeholder approval and funding.
Project Kickoff Meeting
Initial gathering where the team and stakeholders align on a project’s purpose, scope, and goals before work begins.
Project Schedule
A detailed, chronological plan of tasks, resources, and deadlines that guides teams to deliver projects on time and within scope.
Project Closure
Final project phase that wraps up deliverables, documents outcomes, and captures lessons learned to ensure finality and future improvements.
Project Planning
Structured process of defining goals, scope, timelines, resources, and strategy to guide a project from start to finish.
Project Lifecycle
Five-phase framework that guides a project from initiation to closure, ensuring structure, alignment, and successful delivery.
Project Management
Structured discipline of planning, executing, and controlling projects to deliver results on time, within scope, and on budget.
Project Management Software
Digital tool that helps teams plan, track, and manage projects for better collaboration and efficiency.
Pareto Principle
Idea that 80% of results come from 20% of effort, guiding smarter prioritization and resource use.
Project Delays
Schedule setbacks that push tasks or milestones beyond planned timelines, often increasing costs and risking project success.
Project Budget
Detailed financial plan that estimates, tracks, and controls all costs needed to complete a project successfully.
Product Backlog
Prioritized list of features, fixes, and tasks that guides development and evolves with customer and business needs.
Pomodoro Technique
Time management method using 25-minute focus sessions with short breaks to boost productivity and reduce fatigue.
Pickle Jar Theory
Time management method that prioritizes important tasks first, using a jar metaphor to illustrate how to fit work into a limited day.
Project Execution
Phase where project plans are implemented, tasks are delivered, and risks managed to ensure successful outcomes.
Planning Poker
Collaborative Agile estimation technique where teams use cards to assess task complexity and reach consensus on workload.
Project Monitoring
Ongoing process of tracking progress against plans to identify issues and keep projects on time, within scope, and on budget.
Project Control
Process of applying corrective actions and risk strategies during execution to keep projects aligned with goals and prevent failures.
Project Manager
Person who plans, coordinates, and oversees projects to ensure they are delivered on time, within scope, and on budget.
Premortem Analysis
Planning exercise where teams assume a project has failed and identify possible causes to prevent problems before they happen.
Postmortem Meeting
Review held after a project to analyze successes, challenges, and lessons learned, ensuring continuous improvement in future projects.
Project Management Artifacts
Formal documents that define and guide a project’s execution, ensuring alignment, structure, and accountability throughout its lifecycle.
Project Goals
Clear outcomes a project aims to achieve, providing direction, focus, and measurable targets for success.
Project Objectives
Clear, measurable steps that break down goals into actionable outcomes, so projects stay aligned, efficient and on track.
Project Crashing
Process of speeding up a project’s timeline by adding resources to critical tasks, reducing duration at the expense of higher costs.
Proof of Concept
Test run that demonstrates whether an idea or solution is viable before full-scale execution.
Project Plan
A roadmap that defines goals, tasks, responsibilities, timelines, and resources needed to complete a project successfully.
Quantitative Risk Analysis
Data-driven process that uses statistical models to measure the potential impact of risks on project cost, schedule, and performance.
Remote Work
Flexible arrangement where employees perform tasks outside the office, relying on digital tools for communication and collaboration.
Rational Unified Process (RUP)
Iterative, UML-driven software development framework that emphasizes modeling, collaboration, and adaptability for teams of any size.
Resource Leveling
Process of adjusting project schedules to match available resources, ensuring no one is overworked or underused.
Resource Smoothing
Technique that balances workloads by shifting non-critical tasks within their float, keeping deadlines intact while reducing peaks in resource demand.
Resource Calendar
Scheduling tool that tracks the availability of people and equipment, helping project managers allocate resources effectively and avoid conflicts.
Requirements Traceability Matrix
Document that links project requirements to test cases and deliverables, ensuring every requirement is implemented and verified.
Risk Register
Document that records and tracks potential project risks, their likelihood, impact, and planned responses to ensure proactive risk management.
Slack Time
Allowable delay in a task that won’t impact project deadlines or dependent tasks.
Synchronous Communication
Real-time interaction between people, enabling immediate information exchange and faster decision-making.
Strategic Project Management
Aligns projects with business strategy, ensuring they drive efficiency, competitiveness, and long-term organizational success.
Schedule Variance
Measures the difference between earned value and planned value to show if a project is ahead, behind, or on schedule.
Statement of Work
Detailed project document that outlines deliverables, costs, timelines, and responsibilities to align clients and vendors.
S-Curve
Project management graph that plots cumulative progress over time, showing how work typically starts slowly, accelerates in the middle, and tapers off toward completion.
Scrum Meeting
Daily 15-minute team check-in where members share progress, plans, and obstacles to stay aligned and keep projects moving efficiently.
Stakeholder Mapping
Process of identifying and visually categorizing stakeholders based on their interest and influence to guide effective engagement and communication.
Time Management
Process of organizing and prioritizing tasks to use time efficiently and achieve desired outcomes.
Time Blocking
Practice of scheduling fixed time slots for specific tasks to improve focus, productivity, and organization.
Teamwork
Collaborative effort toward a shared goal, built on mutual support, communication, and complementary skills to achieve greater results together.
Team Dynamics
Patterns of interaction, communication, and collaboration that shape how effectively a team works toward shared goals.
Team Player
Someone who collaborates, communicates, and contributes reliably to help their team achieve shared goals.
Team Values
Shared principles that guide behavior, foster unity, and create a positive, productive work environment.
Team Cohesion
Ability of a team to work together toward common goals while maintaining trust, solidarity, and strong interpersonal bonds.
Time Tracking
Process of recording and analyzing how time is spent on tasks or projects to improve productivity, accountability, and cost management.
Time Tracking Software
Digital tool that records and analyzes work hours to improve productivity, billing accuracy, and project management.
Task Batching
Productivity method that groups similar tasks together to reduce context switching, boost focus, and save time.
Timeboxing
Time management method that sets fixed calendar blocks to complete tasks, improving focus, productivity, and deadline control.
Task Conflicts
Work-related disagreement over how tasks should be done, which can spark better decisions and ideas if managed constructively.
Team Collaboration
Process of working together through shared skills and open communication to achieve common goals more effectively.
Team Collaboration Software
Digital tool that centralizes communication, file sharing, and task management to help teams work together efficiently.
Team Conflicts
Disagreements within a group that, if managed well, can drive better decisions but, if ignored, can harm performance and morale.
Toxic Coworker
Employee whose ongoing negative behavior harms morale, trust, and productivity, disrupting team and company culture.
Traditional Project Management
Structured, sequential approach to projects, designed to deliver results on time, within budget, and in line with predefined specifications.
Team Building
Practice of fostering trust, communication, and collaboration so a group can work together more effectively toward shared goals.
Upstream Dependency
Prerequisite task that must be completed before another project task can start or progress.
Value Stream Management
Process of mapping and improving how value flows from idea to customer, ensuring efficiency and alignment with business goals.
Workload Management
Strategic allocation of tasks to ensure team members are neither overworked nor underutilized, promoting efficiency, well-being, and consistent results.
Workflow Process
Defined series of steps used to complete a task or deliverable in an organized and efficient way.
Workflow Automation
Use of software to streamline repetitive tasks, saving time and boosting efficiency with minimal human input.
Work Breakdown Structure
Project management tool that organizes a project into smaller deliverables and tasks within a clear hierarchy to improve planning, scheduling, and tracking.
X-Bar Chart
Control chart that tracks process averages over time to monitor consistency and detect variations.
Yardstick Competition
Practice of benchmarking performance against peers to promote accountability, efficiency, and improvement.
Zero-Based Budgeting
Method where every expense must be justified from scratch each period, ensuring resources align with business priorities.