# Project Management Pathways

> Project delivery written by someone still doing it. Practitioner articles on RAID, scheduling and governance, each with the tool, template or diagram that makes it usable.

Written by one practitioner, named on every article. Articles pair with a
free browser-based tool where one exists.

## Articles

- [SPI and CPI: the two ratios that say if you are late or over budget](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/spi-and-cpi-key-performance-indicators/): Two ratios off one earned value figure. SPI divides it by the plan and reads schedule. CPI divides it by the bill and reads cost. Below 1 is bad news in both, for different reasons.
- [Earned value management: what EV, PV and AC actually measure](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/earned-value-management-ev-pv-ac/): Three figures read at one date. Planned value is what the baseline said would be finished by now, earned value is what did finish, actual cost is what finishing it cost.
- [Tornado diagrams: reading a sensitivity analysis at a glance](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/tornado-diagrams-risk-analysis/): One bar per variable, the widest at the top, all of them measured against a baseline down the middle. A tornado diagram ranks what could move an outcome, and by how much.
- [Risk register versus issue log: what goes in each, and the moment one becomes the other](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/risk-register-vs-issue-log/): A risk might happen. An issue already has. That single difference decides which artefact a line belongs in, what you record about it, and who you have to tell.
- [The stakeholder engagement assessment matrix: current, desired, and the gap between](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/stakeholder-engagement-assessment-matrix/): One row per stakeholder, one column per engagement level, and two marks per row. The distance between the two marks is the only thing on the grid you can actually act on.
- [The salience model: sorting stakeholders by power, legitimacy and urgency](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/salience-model/): Three attributes, seven classes, one question: whose claim gets attention first. Hold all three and you are a definitive stakeholder, and definitive stakeholders do not wait.
- [Closing an agile project: ending work that could always run one more sprint](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/how-to-close-agile-projects/): Predictive work gets an ending for free, the day the thing is handed over. Iterative work has to manufacture one, which is why so much of it never formally ends at all.
- [Delivery cadence: the rhythm you work to, and how often something actually ships](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/delivery-cadence/): Cadence is the beat the work runs to. Delivery cadence is how often finished output reaches the people who asked for it. Teams conflate the two and then wonder why nobody feels the pace.
- [Legal concepts in project management: what to recognise, record and escalate](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/legal-concepts-in-project-management/): A delivery manager does not need to know contract law. They need to notice the moment a delivery problem becomes a contractual one, because after that moment informal handling starts costing money.
- [Contingency reserve vs management reserve: what sits inside the baseline, and who releases it](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/contingency-reserve-vs-management-reserve/): Contingency reserve sits inside the cost baseline, for risks already named and priced. Management reserve sits above it, for the ones nobody named. Level and authority, not size.
- [Rewards and recognition: the lever with a budget, and the one you actually hold](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/rewards-and-recognition-in-project-management/): A reward is set in advance and conditional. Recognition is retrospective, unexpected and free. Most project managers control the second and none of the first, which decides where the effort goes.
- [Types of PMO: which one you have, and which one the work is asking for](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/types-of-pmo/): Three types, separated by one variable: how much authority the office holds. Supportive advises, controlling requires, directive runs the work. Level is a second axis and a different question.
- [Iteration-based and flow-based agile: one fixes the interval, the other fixes the queue](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/iteration-based-vs-flow-based-agile/): Iteration-based agile fixes the length of the cycle and commits a batch to it. Flow-based agile fixes the amount of work in progress and pulls the next item when a slot frees.
- [Needs assessment: establishing the gap before anyone names a solution](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/needs-assessment/): A needs assessment measures the distance between the current state and the state an organisation requires, in evidence rather than assertion, and it does it before any solution is named.
- [Make or buy decisions: compare whole life costs, then decide on what cost cannot show](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/make-or-buy-decisions-in-project-management/): A make or buy analysis compares the whole life cost of building something against buying it, and finds the point where the cheaper option changes. Capability, control and risk usually decide it.
- [Inherent, residual, and the score nobody writes down](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/articles/inherent-residual-risk/): Most risk registers record one number per row. The number that actually justifies spending money is the distance between two of them.

## Tools

- [Risk scoring matrix](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/tools/risk-scoring-matrix/): Score a risk before any response, then again assuming the response works. The reduction between the two is the number worth taking to the board.

## Glossary

- [Actual cost](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/actual-cost/): The costs genuinely incurred for the work counted as earned value, up to a given date. Actual cost only means something when it covers the same scope earned value covers.
- [Breach of contract](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/breach-of-contract/): A failure by one party to perform an obligation the contract requires, whether or not the other party treats it as such at the time.
- [Break-even point](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/break-even-point/): The volume or duration at which two options cost the same, so that the cheaper of the two changes on either side of it.
- [Business case](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/business-case/): The document justifying an investment, evaluating the benefit, cost and risk of alternative options and giving a rationale for the preferred one.
- [Cadence](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/cadence/): The fixed length of the cycle a team plans, works and reviews in. Its value comes from repeating, not from being short.
- [Change control board](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/change-control-board/): The named group holding authority to approve or reject a change request, and the only body that can move an approved change into the baseline.
- [Completion bonus](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/completion-bonus/): A payment agreed in advance and released when a piece of work reaches an agreed end state, conditional on the outcome rather than on the contribution made along the way.
- [Contingency reserve](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/contingency-reserve/): Money held inside the cost baseline, or time held inside the schedule baseline, for risks already identified, assessed and priced, and drawn on by the project manager as they occur.
- [Corrective action](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/corrective-action/): A change request that realigns future work with the plan after performance has already drifted away from it.
- [Cost baseline](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/cost-baseline/): The approved, time phased budget a project is measured against, made up of the priced work packages plus their contingency reserve, and excluding management reserve.
- [Cost performance index](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/cost-performance-index/): Earned value divided by actual cost. Below 1 means the completed work cost more than its budget, above 1 means it cost less.
- [Definitive stakeholder](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/definitive-stakeholder/): A stakeholder holding power, legitimacy and urgency at once, whose claim takes priority over every other claim on the work.
- [Earned value](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/earned-value/): The budgeted cost of the work actually completed at a given date. Earned value prices finished work at baseline rates, never at what the work really cost.
- [Engagement level](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/engagement-level/): Where a stakeholder sits on the scale from unaware to leading, judged on observed behaviour rather than on stated position.
- [Flow-based delivery](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/flow-based-delivery/): Work organised as a continuous pull with no fixed iteration, controlled instead by a limit on how much may be in progress at once.
- [Free float](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/free-float/): How long an activity can slip before it delays the activity that follows it. Measured against the next task, not against the project finish.
- [Handover](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/handover/): The transfer of a delivered output to the people who will run it, understood as a transition period rather than a single date.
- [Inherent risk](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/inherent-risk/): The exposure a risk carries before any action has been taken to manage it, scored on the same likelihood and impact scale as the residual score it is compared against.
- [Issue log](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/issue-log/): The list of events that have already occurred and are affecting the work, each with an owner and a resolution date. Likelihood no longer applies.
- [Iteration](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/iteration/): One turn of a team's working cycle, fixed in length, ending in something that could in principle be delivered.
- [Make or buy analysis](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/make-or-buy-analysis/): A comparison of the whole life cost and the wider consequences of producing something in house against acquiring it from the market.
- [Management reserve](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/management-reserve/): Money held above the cost baseline for exposure nobody identified during planning, released by the sponsor or the funding body and never by the project manager.
- [Needs assessment](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/needs-assessment/): Structured work establishing the gap between an organisation's current state and the state it requires, in evidence, before any solution is named.
- [Notice provision](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/notice-provision/): A clause setting out how, to whom and by when a party must formally communicate something for it to count. Missing the deadline can forfeit the entitlement.
- [Peer recognition](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/peer-recognition/): Acknowledgement of a contribution given by colleagues rather than awarded down a management line, usually through nomination or an open thank you.
- [Planned value](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/planned-value/): The budgeted cost of the work the baseline scheduled to be complete by a given date. Planned value = budget at completion × planned percent complete.
- [Project closure](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/project-closure/): The formal end of a piece of work, whether because it finished or because it was stopped early. In iterative delivery it is a decision rather than an arrival.
- [Project management office](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/project-management-office/): An organisational structure that supports project, programme or portfolio work, ranging from an advisory office to one that runs the projects itself.
- [RAID log](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/raid-log/): A single register holding risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies, and usually decisions, with the type recorded on every line.
- [Residual risk](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/residual-risk/): The exposure remaining once the planned response has been applied, scored on the same scale as the inherent assessment so the two can be subtracted.
- [Risk register](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/risk-register/): The list of events that could affect the work but have not yet, each scored for likelihood and impact, with an owner and a planned response.
- [Salience model](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/salience-model/): A stakeholder classification that sorts claims by three attributes, power, legitimacy and urgency, producing seven classes plus the nonstakeholder.
- [Schedule performance index](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/schedule-performance-index/): Earned value divided by planned value. Below 1 means less work is complete than the baseline scheduled by that date, above 1 means more.
- [Sensitivity analysis](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/sensitivity-analysis/): Recomputing an outcome while one input at a time moves across its plausible range, with every other input held at its base value, to rank what drives the result.
- [Stakeholder analysis](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/stakeholder-analysis/): Identifying who holds a claim on a piece of work and classifying those claims, so that attention is allocated deliberately rather than by whoever shouts loudest.
- [Stakeholder engagement plan](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/stakeholder-engagement-plan/): The actions, owners and dates for moving named stakeholders from their current engagement level to the level the work requires.
- [Statement of need](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/statement-of-need/): The written output of a needs assessment: the gap an organisation has to close, described with no product, technology or supplier named in it.
- [Throughput](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/throughput/): The number of work items completed per unit of time, counted where work leaves the system rather than where it is started.
- [Tornado diagram](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/tornado-diagram/): A horizontal bar chart ranking variables by how far each one moves an outcome, widest bar at the top. The narrowing stack of bars is what gives the chart its name.
- [Total cost of ownership](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/total-cost-of-ownership/): The full cost of a thing across its life, covering acquisition, running, change, support and eventual retirement, rather than the purchase price alone.
- [Total float](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/total-float/): How long an activity can slip before it delays the project end date. Zero total float means the activity is on the critical path.
- [Work in progress limit](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/glossary/wip-limit/): A cap on how many items may be in progress at once, which forces work to be finished before anything new is started.

## Topics

- [RAID](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/topics/raid/): Risks, assumptions, issues, dependencies and decisions. How to keep a register that people actually update, and that changes what happens next.
- [Scheduling](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/topics/scheduling/): Critical path, float, dependencies and lag. What actually moves your end date, and what only looks like it does.
- [Estimating](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/topics/estimating/): Ranges, contingency and the conversations that follow. How to produce a number you can defend when it is challenged.
- [Performance and metrics](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/topics/performance/): Earned value, lead and cycle time, velocity and variation. How to tell whether delivery is on track, and which of the numbers quoted at you mean anything.
- [Governance](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/topics/governance/): Stage gates, steering committees and reporting. Making the ceremony earn its place instead of consuming the delivery.
- [Scope and initiation](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/topics/scope/): Needs assessment, business case, charter and baseline. Establishing what a project is for, before anyone argues about whether it delivered.
- [Agile delivery](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/topics/agile/): Cadence, backlogs, sprints and the roles around them. The mechanics of iterative delivery, and how to tell an adaptation from a workaround.
- [Stakeholders](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/topics/stakeholders/): Influence, interest and the people who can stop your project. Mapping who matters, and the conversations that follow once you know.
- [Procurement](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/topics/procurement/): Contracts, statements of work and the RFx that precede them. Deciding what to buy, writing down what you expect, and the legal edges that catch delivery people out.

## Optional

- [Full text of every page](https://projectmanagementpathways.com/llms-full.txt)