Some Confusing Terminologies.

Analogous vs parametric Estimating

Analogous Estimating use Expert Judgement (as in the actual experience from a person) to compare a similar project and provides rough estimates.
E,g, There's a tall building in front of your house and someone tells you that the building's construction cost was 100 million. Now you are asked to calculate the cost of a similar building, which is half the height of the first building. How much do you think it would cost?

Parametric use historical data unrelated to type of project (eg. required labor hours to lay a carpet in a room of xx sqare foot) in addition to current cost of resource (labor hours and carpet cost..).
E.g. It costs $10 psf to install floor tiles. Your house has an area of 1000 sq. ft. How much would it cost to install the flooring in your entire house?

 

Configuration Control vs Change Control

* Configuration Control is the activity of managing the  product  (or project's deliverables) and related documents, throughout the lifecycle of the product.
* An effective Configuration Control system ensures that:
      * The latest approved version of the product and its components are used at all times. 
      * No change is made to the product baselines without authorization.
      * A clear audit trail of all proposed, approved or implemented changes exists.
* Change Control  is the process of identifying, documenting, approving or rejecting, and controlling changes to the  project  baselines (including scope baselines, schedule baselines, cost baselines, etc.). In other words, it is used to control changes to all aspects of an approved project plan. An effective Change Control system ensures that:
      * Proposed changes are reviewed and their impact is analyzed, prior to approving or rejecting them.
      * All requests and changes are properly documented to provide a clear audit trail.
* Configuration Control and Change Control are distinct in the following ways:
      * Configuration Control addresses the management of the product (or project's deliverables), whereas Change Control addresses the management of the project.
      * Configuration Control manages changes to the product baseline, whereas Change Control manages changes to the project baseline.
      * Configuration Control is applied throughout the lifecycle of the product (concept->design->develop/manufacture->service->dispose), whereas Change Control is applied during the lifecycle of the project subsequent to establishing the project baselines.

 

Project Schedule vs Schedule Baseline

Schedule Baseline is an "approved" version of the Project Schedule
* Project Schedule is a "living" document, whereas Schedule Baseline is "frozen"
* Project Schedule is the "actual", whereas Schedule Baseline is the "plan". 
* Project Schedule is a Project Document, whereas Schedule Baseline is a part of the Project Management Plan. 
* Project Schedule is updated as the project is being executed, whereas Schedule Baseline is revised only as a result of an approved change.  

* Schedule performance is measured by comparing the actual (Project Schedule) vs the baseline (Schedule Baseline). 
     * At the beginning of project execution, the Project Schedule is the same as the Schedule Baseline.
     * As work is done on the project, the actual progress is updated on the project schedule.
     * At any given date, the latest version of the actual (project) schedule is referred to as the "Project Schedule". 

Few more concepts
* You don't touch the Schedule Baseline except for approved changes.
* Schedule Data includes schedule milestones, schedule activities, activity attributes, resource requirements, assumptions & constraints etc.
* Schedule Network Diagram is a schematic display of logical relationship between project schedule activities.

 

Enhance vs Exploit

Enhancing is about increasing the probability of the occurrence of the event. Here, though the measures will be taken to increase the chance of happening of the event, but no surety to realize it.
In Enhance Response Strategy, opportunity may or may not be realized.
Exploiting is about doing everything to make the event happen; i.e. to make sure that opportunity is realized. Exploit Risk Response strategy takes the opportunity very seriously and develops an approach to increase the chance of happening to 100% to realize it.
• Enhance - try to realized the opportunity,
• Exploit - ensure to realize the opportunity.
• Enhance - try to increase the probability.
• Exploit - probability increased to 100%.
• Enhance - it can be assumed as opposite of the Mitigation.
• Exploit - it can be assumed as opposite to the Avoid.

 

Close Project/Phase vs Close Procurements

Close Procurement
"Close Procurement is the process of completing each project procurement. It supports the Close Project or Phase Process" 
Close Procurement is also known as Contract Closure. A procurement is said to be closed when contract reaches to its deadline and it ends. A project can have a multiple procurement contracts, or single contract. If the project is having multiple contracts then Close Procurement Process will be performed multiple times with each procurement contract, and if the project has no contract then there will be no Close Procurement Process.

Close Project
"Close Project or Phase is the process of finalizing all activities across all of the project management process groups to formally complete the project or phase."
Close Project or Phase Process is performed when project or phase is finally completed and deliverables are accepted. To complete the close project or phase, close procurement process must has been finished otherwise project closure cannot happen; however, this is not the case for Close Procurement where Project Closure is not required in order to complete the Close Procurement.

Key Points
* Close Procurement must happen before Close Project or Phase.
* Close Procurement can occur many times in life-cycle of the project, but the Project Closure will be performed once; i.e. at the end.
* Deliverables are accepted in Close Project.
* Every project must be gone through the Close Project process even it is terminated.

 

Quality Assurance vs Quality Control Quality Assurance
* Quality Assurance is a method which makes sure that any process developed to generate product is such that the product that comes out from the process must be fit, and conforms to all stated requirements. To develop the process, Quality Assurance takes input from the Quality Control Process.
* Quality Assurance is a proactive process, and starts at the very beginning of the project to understands the stated requirements, not stated requirements, expectation, and creates a plan to meet those requirements and expectations.
* Quality Audit is an example of Quality Assurance. Other examples are training, process definition, and selection of tools etc.
The primary purpose of Quality Assurance is to prevent defects in deliverables at the planning process stage itself to avoid rework.

Quality Control
* Quality Control is a product based approach and is concerned with the operational activities and techniques those are used to fulfill the requirements of quality.
* The Quality Control functions starts once the projects work has begun. It is a reactive approach and helps to find defects in deliverables. Site inspection and testing etc. are examples of the Quality Control Process.
* Main purpose of the Quality Control Process is to see if the deliverables are defect free, acceptable as per quality requirements and standards set in the Quality Assurance process. If deliverables are not as per requirements, suitable corrective action will be taken.
* Quality Assurance, and Quality Control processes are dependent on each other. The Quality Control receives the input from the Quality Assurance, and in turns gives feedback to the Quality Assurance so that Quality Assurance could validate the process.
* For example, if the project team finds any defects while executing the project, it will correct the error by work around and this feedback is sent to Quality Assurance for further investigation to take corrective actions in the process so that this error should never happen again in future. In the same way the Quality Control people will follow the process defined by Quality Assurance so that these defects do not recur.