Project Management Terminology - M

M   Management by Project. A term used to describe normal management processes that are being project managed. 

MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT   All aspects of staff planning, recruitment, development, training and assessment. 

MANAGEMENT RESERVE   A central contingency pool. Sum of money held as an overall contingency to cover the cost impact of some unexpected event occurring. Note: This is self-insurance. 

MASTER NETWORK   Network showing the complete project, from which more detailed networks are derived. 

MASTER SCHEDULE   A high level summary project schedule that identifies major activities and milestones. 

MATERIAL   Property which may be incorporated into or attached to an end item to be delivered under a contract or which may be consumed or expended in the performance of a contract. It includes, but is not limited to raw and processed material, parts, components, assemblies, fuels and lubricants, and small tools and supplies which may be consumed in normal use in the performance of a contract. 

MATRIX ORGANIZATION   An organizational structure where the Project Manager and the Functional Manager share the responsibility of assigning priorities and for directing the work. 

METHODOLOGY   A documented process for management of projects that contains procedures, definitions and roles and responsibilities. 

MID-STAGE ASSESSMENT   An assessment in the middle of a project that can be held for several reasons: 

1) at the request of the project board; 

2) to authorize work on the next stage before current one is completed; 

3) to allow for a formal review in the middle of a long project; or 

4) to review exception plans. 

MILESTONE   A key event. An event selected for its importance in the project. 

Note: Milestones are commonly used in relation to progress. 

(A milestone is often chosen to represent the start of a new phase or completion of a major deliverable. They are used to monitor progress at summary level. Milestones are activities of zero duration.) 

MILESTONE PLAN   A plan containing only milestones which highlight key points of the projects. 

MILESTONE SCHEDULE   A schedule that identifies the major milestones. See also Master Schedule. 

MISSION STATEMENT   Brief summary, approximately one or two sentences, that sums up the background, purposes and benefits of the project. 

MITIGATION   Working to reduce risk by lowering its chances of occurring or by reducing its effect if it occurs. 

MOBILISATION   The bringing together of project personnel and securing equipment and facilities. Carried out during project start-up phases. 

MONITORING   Monitoring is the recording, analysing and reporting of project performance as compared to the plan. 

MONTE CARLO SIMULATION   A technique used to estimate the likely range of outcomes from a complex process by simulating the process under randomly selected conditions a large number of times. 

MULTI-PROJECT   A project consisting of multiple subprojects. 

MULTI-PROJECT ANALYSIS   Multi-project analysis is used to analyse the impact and interaction of activities and resources whose progress affects the progress of a group of projects or for projects with shared resources or both. Multi-project analysis can also be used for composite reporting on projects having no dependencies or resources in common. 

MULTI-PROJECT MANAGEMENT   Managing multiple projects that are interconnected either logically or by shared resources. 

MULTI-PROJECT SCHEDULING   Use of the techniques of resource allocation to schedule more than one project concurrently.