Acronyms and Abbreviations

The following list includes all common acronyms and abbreviations that are used in the world of project management. Terms are linked to definitions where available. Please let me know if you miss an abbreviation or an acronym! I will also extend this list from time to time. However, this list is supposed to include only “pure” project management terms and not industry-specific ones (although I might include some of the software world).

Please note that some of the acronyms might have a different meaning in other contexts so you should take them with a grain of salt if you are not sure about the context. You may want to consult Wikipedia for other meanings.

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1. Start Date

   A start date of a project is sometimes determined by the expected completion date. If a project is to be completed on a certain date and the project takes 90 days, then prior to the 90th day scheduled for completion, project management will determine the start date as to when everything will get underway. There [...]

2. Scheduled Finish Date (SF)

   In project management, Scheduled Finish date (SF) or planned finish date, is the date and time work was scheduled to be completed on a specific activity or task. Scheduled Finish date (SF) is planned using the resource-constrained scheduling process. This process involves scheduling tasks according to the knowledge of resource requirements and constraints such as [...]

3. Finish Date

   The term finish date refers specifically to the date in which the particular schedule activity as part of the overall project is anticipated to be completed. This term finish date is actually an extremely general one in nature, and is typically never used all by itself in terms of project management. But rather, it is [...]

4. Target Schedule

   Target Schedule: It is usually desirable to finish projects within the shortest amount of time possible, and additionally, to predict when the project end date will be. A project often contains a large number of tasks, and some tasks must be finished by critical dates, while others have more scheduling flexibility. Additionally, projects often involve [...]

5. Actual Duration

   The term actual duration can refer to a couple of different things depending on usage and context. In one usage, the term actual duration can refer to the exact amount of time between the date on which the actual start date of a schedule activity falls and the date on which the project schedule’s data [...]