Appendix B. Glossary

Duration

The amount of time a task is expected to take. This can differ from the estimated effort due to the availability of resources.

Effort

The estimated amount of effort required for a given task. e.g. Task 1.2.3 requires 35 effort hours.

Effort Variance

A comparison of the budgeted cost of the work performed vs. the actual cost of the work performed.

Resource

Something which is required to complete a task. Resources are characterized by the fact that they have a limited time availability (e.g. an employee that works 8 hours a day, 5 days a week).

Risk

Risk is associated with a resource/task pairing to indicate the planner's confidence in the estimated effort. Risk can be one of none, low, or high. Some factors that may be taken into account for risk are the experience of the person and the reliability of equipment.

Schedule Variance

A comparison of the budgeted cost of the work planned vs. budgeted cost of the work performed

Terminal Node

A task in the WBS that does not have any subtasks defined for it.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

The list of tasks and subtasks defined for a project. This list is done in a hierarchical fashion, grouping sets of related tasks under a common parent task.