Do PM practitioners speak different languages? Oh, yes! There are many meanings associated with terms commonly used in Project Management (PM). The state of today’s project management lexicon bears notable resemblance to the Tower of Babel, that biblical emblem of communication failure that resulted from a profusion of languages. How did this happen? Who created and misused our terminology?

In the beginning [circa 1950-70’s], work-items were labeled “Activities” as per AON = Activity on Node. “Tasks” were small jobs within an Activity, with or without sequences between them. A work breakdown structure (WBS) was an organization chart of the project’s components and their deliverables, decomposed successively to a level of control, aka ‘work package.’ (There were and are no Activities in a WBS.) A Bar chart was a timeline schedule, not a Gantt chart, although Harry Gantt used bar charts in his Industrial Engineering work. Logic Diagrams were non-dimensional ‘wiring diagrams’ showing the flow of work like a circuit of dependent time capacitors. Float was used to manually schedule Activities – software was not available to do this – by constraining the beginning and/or end of Activities with constraint dates. Activity connecting ‘nodes’ were ‘events’ for lack of a better term. Calculation of the network’s activity times (not dates) node-event time, earliest completion of the last Activity and the Float of the non-constraining Activities was called the Mathematical Analysis.

And now?  

Sometimes an Activity is called a Task, and sometimes a Task is called an Activity, resulting in TONs - Tasks on Node – and AONs - Activities-on- Nodes. Whatever happened to ‘Work-items’? An outline of summary (parent) and its Activities (child) is called a WBS. (What is a true WBS now called??) Time-phased logic diagrams are called “schedules” (!!!), and Bar-charts are called PERT charts or diagrams (didn’t anyone realize what the ‘P’ was for?*) Float is being used to destroy the best laid plans of mice and men. In PDM, what are those itsy, bitsy, little boxes called? (Darn hard to describe an Activity’s scope in 26 characters or less!) The ‘early’ times are called a ‘schedule.’

Need I go on? And the Tower, like Pinocchio’s nose, is growing.

Who did this dastardly deed to us?  I know the answer, do you? Look into your VDU (Visual Display Unit, or the ‘screen’ of your PC) and imagine it is a mirror.  If the shoe fits might I suggest you slip it on?

It seems appropriate, in this issue of MMT highlighting the advances of technology, to ask ourselves why we tolerate the confusion.

The Project Management Institute, since the 1996 1st edition of its GUIDE to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (GUIDE to the PMBoK), has tried to establish a norm for PM terms and their definitions. Because it was ‘descriptive’ and not ‘prescriptive,’ it was ignored. Subsequent editions have fared no better.

Information Technology is great but you have to be able to speak – and decode – the ‘lingo.’ And Project Management practitioners do not yet have a common glossary or lexicon of even the most basic terms to give logic to the ‘lingo’ needed to communicate across all sectors of PM.

Interestingly enough, in the recent study on developing a ‘maturity model’ and structuring maturity in a project organization, step one was to establish (are you ready for this?) a common lexicon!  Project Management folks want to be in a ‘profession.’  But a hallmark of a profession is that it has a common lexicon. Medicine and law are prime examples: doctors use that other funny language (Latin); we don’t really know what they are saying but we trust that they do. Lawyers speak the same language, even though they argue every day in Court about either the definition (glossary) or the context (lexicon).  Hmm, does the fact that Project Managers argue about common terms qualify us as profession, too?

The point is that roses smell the same regardless of their color, and our work is the same no matter what we call or label its components. We simply must speak the same language if we are to communicate effectively.

And this is just English.  Imagine the confusion that arises as these terms are translated into x$@% languages. Surely the Egyptian planners, schedulers, and Project Managers spoke a common language when they built the Great Pyramid.  Or was it sign language? That, in and of itself, is a lesson worth noting.

* PERT stands for Program Evaluation Review Technique

Earl Glenwright