Glossary

Actual Times

The times when a task was actually started and finished. Actual Start and Actual Finish are recorded automatically when a task is marked as started and as finished, or can be set in Task Details. If a task's remaining duration is reduced when a task is started, Fusion will back-date the Actual Start.

Agile

A project management approach emphasizing low work-in-process and frequent adaptation of plans to meet emergent needs; see agilemanifesto.org.

Application Programming Interface (API)

This is a way to communicate with an application using software function calls rather than a web browser. It can be used by other applications that provide an alternative user interface (e.g., a dashboard) or it can be used to simply send and receive data.

ASAP Times

A task that can be scheduled to start no earlier (considering network restrictions including path and resource dependencies) is said to be scheduled at its ASAP times.

Assignee

A Fusion Online user who has been assigned a task is the "Assignee" for that task.

Assignment

A task or checklist item that has been assigned to a Fusion Online user account. Also referred to as a user assignment.

Assignment Delay

The difference between the user finish calculated by the Assignment Scheduler and the projected finish calculated by the Project Scheduler. It is equal to the task's Assignment Finish minus the Projected Finish.

Assignment Impact

The amount of time that a task’s Assignment Finish (its expected finish by the Assignee, as calculated by the Assignment Scheduler) is past the time when the task would be considered critical.

Assignment Load Horizon

This field, towards the top of the My Team view, determines what goes into calculation of the Assignment Load value.

Assignment Scheduler

A background process in Fusion Online that automatically calculates assignment start and finish times, as well as assignment delays, for tasks with user assignments. See Assignment Scheduler for more details.

Assignment Times

The task and checklist start and finished times based on the user’s priorities and user calendar, as calculated by the Assignment Scheduler.

Attachment

A file that is attached to a project or task. The maximum size is controlled via Max Attachment File Size on the System Options screen.

Backlog

This is a set of tasks that are associated with a project, but not committed to. In Fusion Online, this means tasks that are not connected to an Endpoint.

Backlog Task

This is a project task that has been created in Fusion Online and is not associated with any endpoint. It will appear on task views for the project, but will not be scheduled.

Badge

A "badge" is an oval box containing data that may be clicked on to see or edit associated data.

Buffer

A buffer is time strategically added to the schedule to protect against expected task variation and unanticipated delays in task execution. Buffers are not slack; they provide essential time in the schedule to account for uncertainty. The size of the buffer will depend on the estimated variation in the preceding tasks. The Project Scheduler automatically figures out where to insert buffers and how big they should be. Monitoring the rate of buffer consumption provides a simple means of assessing a project’s health.

Buffer Consumption

Buffers are “consumed” when tasks take longer than desired. Buffer consumption provides insights into project status.

Buffer Management

Buffer management is the process by which project status is monitored, assessed, and communicated. Buffer management provides the means to prioritize tasks based upon their relative impacts to a project buffer. The task priorities can be reflected by the calculated Criticality Ratio variable.

In buffer management, project buffers are checked for consumption. The rate of buffer consumption versus the amount of project work that has been accomplished along the project’s currently “most constrained” chain will indicate whether there is a problem. There are three status zones that the project will fall into: (1) good probability of completing on time (green), at risk of completing on time (yellow), and at great risk of completing on time (red). These zones are reflected in the Fever Chart. Depending on the current zone of the fever chart a buffer is in, more serious management interventions may be required. Buffer-related indicators like the critical chain can be used to look ahead and see where schedule disruptions are likely to affect the overall project. This ability to look ahead gives more time to fix problems. It also provides a means to test alternative recovery plans so that managers know ahead of time what will and will not help to solve problems and recover buffer.

Buffer Recovery

Buffers are “recovered” when the team finds ways to accelerate the tasks along the critical chain. Buffer recovery is accomplished through proactive decision making and strong teamwork.

Buffer Status

The buffer status is the amount of the buffer that has been consumed due to variation in one or more of the assumptions upon which the schedule was initially built. The percent of the buffer used is flagged in Microsoft Project in the “% Complete” field for the buffer tasks. The amount of consumption is displayed as a horizontal black line through the middle of the buffer in the Gantt Chart views and can also be seen on the Fever Charts.

Bulk Update

The primary Fusion Online views allow you to check multiple tasks, endpoints, or projects. The menu that comes up allows you to select multiple data fields and to update all those fields for the selected items at the same time.

Centralized Leveling

A pipeline scheduler option whereby the projected times of the pacing resource tasks are leveled across all the projects in the pipeline.

Checklist

A detailed breakdown of a task into subtasks. Individual checklist tasks are not scheduled separately when rescheduling or updating a project, and they don't appear as separate tasks in Microsoft Project. Checklists are a convenient way to add detail to a schedule on an as-needed basis, without complicating the overall schedule and critical chain. They are scheduled by the Assignment Scheduler.

Credibility Calculations

These are the calculations performed to give a project a Credibility Score. Each project is given a Credibility Score each time it is updated; the associated calculations are found in the project's Credibility Profile.

Credibility Profile

The Credibility Profile is a tailored scoring mechanism for your projects to make sure that they adhere to best practices for schedule creation; including number of endpoints, updated tasks, and so on.

Credibility Score

This score, with 0 the worst and 100 the best, is calculated based on various "best practices" that you select in your Credibility Profile.

Critical Chain

The critical chain is the set of tasks that determines duration of the Most Significant Endpoint for the task, considering both task and resource dependencies. Resource dependencies are determined by the available capacities of the various resources assigned to a project. The critical chain may not be the longest chain of tasks if there are (for example) task constraints restricting endpoint completion. There may also be task constraints or calendar configurations that cause the critical chain to start after the project’s status date, due to slack on earlier tasks; note that slack is calculated based on the project calendar.

The set of critical chain tasks is typically regarded as the constraint of a project. Depending on changes to the network and progress on tasks, the chain of tasks identified as the critical chain may change following each reschedule or each schedule update. More tasks may be added to the critical chain if a sensitivity value is set for the project endpoints.

Critical Chain Tasks

These are the tasks on the longest chain to project completion, considering both task and resource dependencies. (Not simply the tasks whose manager is yelling the loudest…)

Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM)

Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) is an approach to managing projects that incorporates Critical Chain scheduling and Buffer Management.

Criticality

A measure of a task’s impact on the project completion. Priority tasks are those with the lowest Criticality value.

Criticality Ratio

This is a measure of how much a given task is currently affecting the project buffer, and equals 100 times the ratio of buffer available to buffer needed. A value of 100 or greater means the task has enough buffer; a value of 0 or lower means it has no buffer (and is therefore critical).

CSV File

A "comma-separated value" file is a structured way of managing data in a text file. Each line in the file represents an individual record, with the data fields in each record separated by commas. CSV files are downloaded by Fusion Online to your browser and can be read by spreadsheet applications.

Cumulative Buffer Size

This is the duration that, added to a task’s “projected finish,” would result in a “safe” completion date–a date before which it is likely that the task will complete.

Cumulative Integration Risk

This is the amount of protection needed at a particular task to protect it from the effects of integration risk, given all its upstream integration points.

Custom Fields

These are data fields that do not exist by default in Fusion Online.

Dependency

A "dependency" is a connection between two tasks, the predecessor and the successor. It restricts when the successor can be scheduled. There are two types of dependencies: path and resource. A path dependency means a task is restricted by the work being done in the predecessor, and is usually modeled by a "link." A resource dependency means a task is restricted by other tasks that use the same resource.

Dependent Subproject

A project that is part of the same program, i.e., it is updated with the program, sharing resources, impact chains, and buffers with the rest of the program. Connections between dependent subprojects and programs are made through subproject references.

Duration

A duration is an amount of time, specified using a number followed by one or more letters. The number can have up to two digits to the right of a decimal point. The letters may be “m” (minutes), “h” (hours), “d” (days), “w” (weeks), or "mo" (months). This letter may be preceded by the letter “e” to indicate an elapsed duration that's based on a 24-hour calendar. The number indicates the number of those time units in the duration. For example, “3.24d” indicates 3.24 days; “5em” indicates five elapsed minutes.

Duration Range

A duration range consists of two duration values: a focus duration and a low-risk duration. The duration a task actually takes would normally be expected to be somewhere in this range. Note that when you edit a duration range, changing the focus value will automatically cause the low-risk value to be changed according to the proportions of the previous values. For milestones, the word "Milestone" will appear; otherwise there will be an "x" that allows you to convert the task to a milestone.

Eligible Assignment

This is a task whose predecessors are complete. Predecessor tasks that are linked with a start-to-start link must have started in order for the task to be eligible. Fusion Online ignores the lag and lead times when calculating task eligibility.

Eligible Date

Date when an assignment first became eligible.

Endpoint

Tasks with no successors and that are not included in subprojects are considered by Fusion Online to be endpoints in the project network and will be protected with a Project Buffer. Each endpoint has a critical chain leading up to that endpoint.

Expanded Times

The range of time during which a task is expected to be worked taking into account low-risk durations and integration risk. They may be more realistic than projected times when doing resource load calculations.

Fever Chart

This chart shows project status by graphing buffer consumption and percent of project completion. There are three types of fever charts: the Traditional Fever Chart, the Multi-Buffer Fever Chart, and the Time Chart.

Flow Expansion

Flow expansion is the amount that a project’s flow time is allowed to increase, in order to make the project earlier. A value of 100% would allow the start-to-finish time of a project to double if that would allow the project to be scheduled earlier. Flow expansion is only applied in pipeline scheduling during project pacing.

Focus Duration

This is the time you believe a task would take to complete, on average, if you had the minimum possible interruptions and everything needed were available. It is sometimes called the “hands-on” or “touch” time required; it is not a “safe” or “high confidence” duration. We model the reality we would like to achieve, aggregating any needed safety time into the buffers; rather than modeling the reality we prefer to avoid, namely multitasking and interruptions.

Focus Task

This is the task you have indicated you are focusing on.

Fusion Desktop

Fusion Desktop software (formerly ProChain Project Scheduling) is the primary piece of software used to schedule and apply buffer management effectively to single projects using the ProChain System. ProChain software helps support the institutionalization of the ProChain System within an organization. ProChain software is an add-on to Microsoft Project.

Fusion Online

Fusion Online is ProChain’s latest web-based project and portfolio reporting and tracking tool. It interfaces with Fusion Desktop and Fusion Pipeline to improve project management capabilities across multi-level and geographically dispersed organizations.

Fusion Pipeline

Fusion Pipeline software (formerly ProChain Pipeline) enables you to effectively collect, analyze, and appropriately stagger or pace projects for an organization based upon its capacity. Fusion Pipeline contains tools and reports that aid a master scheduler in the management of multiple projects. It is designed to facilitate the collection and dissemination of information important to senior managers, resource managers, and project managers. Fusion Pipeline software facilitates the institutionalization of the ProChain System across an organization. Fusion Pipeline software contains all the functionality of Fusion Desktop and is an add-on to Microsoft Project.

Gating

“Gating” is the process of starting tasks later than their earliest possible start dates. We would like to delay work when it makes sense, as long as it doesn’t jeopardize the project completion dates or encourage people to multitask. Fusion Online consequently delays each “gating task”–a task with no predecessors that has not yet been started–when possible.

Gating Task

This is a task that is "gated," i.e. it has no predecessors and none of its work has been completed. Gated tasks may be projected to start later than "now" if they have sufficient slack to accommodate variation.

Groups

A "Group" is a collection of users, tasks, projects, or resources that can be used simplify filtering, reporting, and setting permissions.

Impact Chain

This is the chain of task predecessors or successors that are within some sensitivity level of being critical relative to a selected task or buffer, considering both resource and task dependencies.

Independent Subproject

A project that is referenced by and feeds into a program network but that is managed and updated separately, either as an independent project or as part of a different program. An independent subproject's impact is limited to being a task dependency. Its resources, impact chains, and buffers are kept separate.

Integration Risk

Integration Risk (also known as merge bias) is the risk that an integration task will start late, due to a delay on one or more predecessors. When several paths of tasks in a project network intersect at a specific task in the network (an integration point), subsequent tasks can only start when all of the predecessors are complete. Integration Risk may also refer to extra time needed to protect against integration risk.

Landing Zone

The range of dates within which we expect the project to complete, based on the project schedule.

Level Load

As part of the scheduling process, resource conflicts–instances in which the number of tasks a resource could work in parallel exceeds the number of resources available–are eliminated by shifting tasks earlier or later in the project plan. During rescheduling and, if the Resequence Tasks option is selected, during schedule updating, the software will level in a smart way and try to make the endpoints finish as soon as possible. Leveling can be affected by task sequence numbers and endpoint scheduling priorities, as well as the basic modeling of your project.

Load Period

The period during which resource load is displayed on Resource views or graphs.

Low-Risk Duration

This is the upper end of the range for how long a task will take to complete. It can be thought of as the 90% confidence duration. This value should include the minimum possible time for interruptions, ideally only representing the variation in task timing that may be experienced when working in a focused manner.

Milestone

This is a task that has no duration. The scheduler will complete it automatically if all predecessors are complete, unless it has a task constraint in the future.

Most Significant Endpoint

The Most Significant Endpoint or MSE, is calculated for each task. It is the endpoint that would be most impacted by the given task, taking into account endpoint priorities. It is the buffer relative to which this task has the least slack, as a proportion of the needed buffer.

Multi-Buffer Fever Chart

This fever chart shows multiple project endpoints on the same screen. It's a useful way to see at a glance which projects are in trouble.

Multitasking

Interrupting one task to work on another. This loses the time required to switch tasks, pushes out the completion of the first task, and often decreases quality.

Non-Project Task

A task that is not associated with a project.

Notification

A "notification" is an alert, in the Fusion Notifications area and/or by email, to something that has happened in your projects or tasks.

Organization

An Organization is a set of projects, tasks, and resources, typically part of an independent business unit. The concept is useful in larger organizations for filtering, reporting, and setting permissions.

Orphaned Subproject

A subproject that is not currently assigned to a program.

Pacing

Delaying the start of a project based on the availability and usage of certain resources that are shared by the multiple projects.

Pacing Resource

The “pacing resource” is the name for the resource used to control and stagger (i.e. pace) the starts of projects in a multi-project pipeline, both to limit the release of work into the system and to decrease contention among other resources.

Parent Resource

A user may specify a hierarchy of “parents” and “children” that the Project Scheduler will respect during resource leveling. A parent resource is the more general category of a resource that may have one or more categories of specific skill sets (children). The child resource belongs to the parent resource for resource leveling purposes. For example, the parent resource may be defined as Scientist and the children may be Sr. Scientist and Jr. Scientist. When possible, the parent resource should be assigned to tasks for flexibility of scheduling and promotion of interchangeability among resources. Child resources would be assigned when only that resource’s specific skill set can accomplish the task.

Permission Rule

A specific rule in Fusion Online that allows people or groups to reference particular tasks, projects, or resources.

Predecessor

This is a task that must come before another task. The type of predecessor will determine whether it must finish or start before the successor can start or finish. Tasks that have no predecessors indicate entry points to the network and are called “gating” tasks.

Priority Endpoint

This is the endpoint judged highest priority for display in the Projects views. Only buffered endpoints are considered; incomplete endpoints are given precedence over completed; and within that, the highest priority you've set will be used. If the endpoints are unprioritized, the endpoint with the latest buffer finish date will be given precedence.

Prioritize. Focus. Finish.

Think of a relay race -- know your priority, work your priority, hand off a high-quality deliverable.

ProChain Solutions, Inc.

ProChain Solutions, Inc., is the company that brings you the Fusion suite of project management software. To obtain more information or send us your comments, contact:

ProChain Solutions, Inc. [phone] [phone] (Fax) email: [email protected] website: www.prochain.com support: [email protected]

ProChain System

The ProChain System is a set of tools, processes, policies, and procedures that helps you create critical chain schedules and use them to substantially improve your project results.

Program

A large project that is comprised of multiple subprojects and schedules.

Progress Loop

This ongoing execution cycle is a key part of the ProChain System.

Progress Meeting

When executing the Progress Loop, a project team will hold a Progress Meeting at least weekly to review status, synchronize priorities, and look for ways to accelerate the project.

Project Abbreviation

Each project can have an abbreviation specified; that identifier can be used in the Fever Chart, Task Keys, and the "Project (abbreviation)" data column as a quick way to identify the project.

Project Buffer

A project buffer is placed after a project endpoint and provides real time in the schedule needed to protect the endpoint commitment date from delays. This is the most important buffer to place in the schedule and to monitor.

Project Template

This is type of a project file can be used for resource grouping and creating new projects. Templates are not scheduled by the Assignment Scheduler and do not allow notifications. That means they will not show user load, and no task or project update notifications will occur.

Projected Times

Projected times are task start and finish times calculated by the Project Scheduler. The projected times represent the times that the task is currently projected to start and finish, assuming that all predecessors on their impact chains are performed at their Focus Durations. Un-started tasks with no predecessors are assumed to start no earlier than their needed gating times; other incomplete tasks are assumed to start as early as possible, taking into account resource contention. Note that projected times are not calculated for buffers.

Re-buffer

An endpoint can be re-buffered by flagging it as "Rebuffer on Next Update" in an endpoint view. A new buffer will be created for the endpoint.

Reference Task

Sometimes referred to as a subproject reference or a box. This is a task in one schedule that represents a block of work in another schedule, i.e., either a single task, a summary task, or an entire subproject. This is the mechanism by which subprojects are linked in a program network. A reference task is considered either dependent or independent depending on whether it references a dependent or independent subproject.

Remaining Duration

The remaining duration is the time required in order to complete a task. It should be expressed in terms of work remaining rather than when the task is expected to complete. Remaining duration will be updated for a task as part of a duration range.

Reschedule

The "reschedule" of a project causes its scheduled times and buffers to be re-created from scratch.

Reserved Capacity

Reserved Capacity is time reserved on a pacing resource’s schedule to protect a pipeline’s project completions from two factors. First is chronic under-reporting of a resource’s load, due to non-modeled work (for example, regular meetings or supervisory duties). Second is the domino effect across projects, in which lateness on one project’s tasks is translated into delays on the pacing resource’s tasks on that project, and in turn, into delays on downstream projects.

Resource

A "resource" is a person, team, or piece of equipment designated as a resource in your project file. Resources have some number of individual "units" available to be scheduled. One or more resources can be assigned to project tasks.

Resource Availability

These are records specified for a given resource (editable in Microsoft Project or Resource Details) that indicate number of units of the resource available for specified date ranges. This is a way to model the ramping on and off of resources to the project.

Schedule Update

The process of recalculating task projected times and buffer consumption in the schedules using the latest task updates and project status date. Schedule updates are not done automatically after each task update but are initiated independently.

Scheduled Times

"Scheduled" times are the start and finish task times created when the project was last rescheduled. At that time, scheduled times match projected times; as the project is updated, those times will diverge.

Secondary View

Secondary views overlay the main views, and can often be expanded or contracted by pressing a button at the top consisiting of a blue circle with the "<" or ">" character inside.

Selection List

A Selection List is a list of allowed fields for a text-type custom field.

Sensitivity

Fusion Online allows you to set two “sensitivity” values, which are closely related. One is shown in the Project Options view. Putting a non-zero value here means the critical chain will be defined as any task within days of being critical.

Similarly, the impact chain filter allows you to specify days of sensitivity, so that you can filter for all tasks within days of being on the impact chain for the task.

Shadow Chain

A shadow chain for a project buffer (or task) is any set of tasks, considering both technical and resource dependencies, that meets the Sensitivity threshold that is specified when applying the Filter Impact button to the project buffer (or task). The primary purpose of identifying shadow chains is to see which sets of activities are close to (within the sensitivity threshold of) being on the impact chain for a project buffer, to make sure the project team also focuses its attention on these tasks as appropriate. If these tasks are delayed, they could cause consumption of the buffer.

Status Badge

A graphic showing the buffer status color of a project endpoint. Red means likely to consume all the buffer, yellow means in danger of consuming all the buffer, and green means unlikely to consume all the buffer.

Status Date

The Status Date for the project determines the starting point for load leveling and buffer insertion and updating.

Subproject

ProChain defines a “subproject” as a project schedule that is linked to a Program through the use of task references. A subproject may be independent or dependent.

Subproject Reference

A task that references an entire project, or that references a task or summary task in another project.

Subscribe

If you subscribe to a task or project, you will get notifications when something happens to the task or project, depending on the notifications you select.

Subtask

A task that is part of a checklist of another task.

Summary Task

This is a task, generally defined in Microsoft Project, that incorporates one or more individual tasks. It can not be updated or assigned resources and does not appear on the critical chain.

System Administrator

This is a Fusion Online user that has been assigned the System Administrator role, either through user group membership or directly. A system administrator has permission to change the setup options and has unrestricted data access.

Task Key

The task key is the concatenation of the project abbreviation and the task's Unique ID. It provides a user-friendly identifier for a task.

Task Manager

A Task Manager is the person responsible for making sure a task is worked and its status reported on before each schedule update.

Task State

This is a variable showing the current state of a task. It has two dimensions. One is where the task is in its progress: Not started, Started, and Completed. The other dimension has to do with how the task might move forward: Blocked (meaning progress is not possible) or Focus (meaning the Assignee is focused on this task). Tasks not linked to an endpoint will display the Backlog icon.

Task State Badge

This is a badge in the Task State column of a task view that indicates task state: not started, started, completed, focus, or blocked.

Task Type

This is a variable that defines the type of task: Checklist, Milestone, Standard (i.e. "normal"), Subproject, or Summary.

Team Lead License

This license enables a user to view and modify any data for which they have the appropriate permissions, including adding or deleting projects and endpoints. See also Team Member License.

Team Member License

This type of license gives a user access to views and tasks, but does not give them the ability to: create, delete, modify or update projects or endpoints; login to Fusion Online from Fusion Desktop; or have system administration capabilities.

Time Chart

The Time Chart is a type of fever chart that displays % project progress versus time. The buffer is represent as a landing zone along the top horizontal axis, and the currently expected variation in the project is shown as a shaded cone that expands over time.

Unique ID

A task’s Unique ID is a numeric identifier assigned to a task at the time the task is inserted into a project network. The identifier is unique within its project. The Unique ID for a task does not change. When that task is deleted, the number will be discarded and will not be assigned to another task within that network.

User

This is a person with an active Fusion Online login account.

User Administrator

This is a Fusion Online user that has been assigned the User Administrator role, either through user group membership or directly. A user admin has permission to create and edit users and user groups.

User Manager

This is a specific type of permission, attached to a user via the User Details screen. The User Manager may update the user's task priorities, set their Focus state, and use the Login As feature to log in as that user.