War Room – Definition

A war room is a meeting room for the purpose of discussing project management.

The term project management involves the planning and strategizing of resources to accomplish a project. A project is a goal with a specific timetable to create a service or product of worth. The room is usually conveniently located, possibly in the center of the office, where members of the project management team are available to answer questions, discuss issues and answer the phone.

The room is a place where project managers discuss the development of a plan to specifically and successfully accomplish the project. In addition, they may discuss the resources needed such as man power, the budget, the timeline and possible challenges to be faced and what can be done about the pitfalls which may occur. In the room, they also talk about the execution of the project, the step by step process of accomplishing their goal. Finally, the completion of the project is discussed in the war room.

To aid in the process, valuable visual information such as budget, time table and project information are available as charts in the war room.

This term is defined in the 3rd edition of the PMBOK but not in the 4th.