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The Most Overused Terms in Project Management
Tom's latest eBook has been released on Amazon: "The 7 Myths of IT Integrations". Tom is also a Program Director for a large Midwest corporation and has been an adjunct faculty member at Walsh College. He has managed global web initiatives, data center moves and large multi-million dollar programs.
Project management was once a side discipline born out of the defense industry that has been gaining tremendous acceptance, standardization and recognition over the last decade. Part of the territory with going “mainstream” is the vocabulary that comes with it.
I’m sure you have read those lists each year of new terms from the national lexicon to be officially added to Webster’s dictionary. Dale Carnegie once purportedly said the hardest thing to do was add a new word to the national vocabulary. Given the rapid rate of adoption of project management, I have also noticed a lot of project management buzzwords not just being used, but sometimes being used incorrectly. With that in mind, here are the most overused terms in project management:
Critical Path Plan: The term properly refers to the longest path through a sequence events. In other words: the shortest possible time in which a project could be executed. Unfortunately, I have heard the term used to add a sense of importance or urgency to your standard, run-of-the-mill project schedule. It seems that in some companies, the critical path plan is all project plans.
War Room: Another way to add magnitude and significance to your project is to have a dedicated project war room. This will be a museum to the project itself. On the walls will be important plans and graphics and …
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