Find the meaning. Make the connection.

A plain-language PRINCE2 glossary.

82 original definitions to support your study. Follow them back to the decisions and responsibilities they describe.

These are independently written study definitions, rather than quotations from the official manual or a substitute for it.

A

Acceptance criteria: Agreed conditions used to decide whether the project’s required result can be accepted.

B

Baseline: The approved reference version used to judge performance and assess proposed changes. A controlled baseline can be changed by the appropriate authority; it is not an instruction to reject all change.
Benefit: A measurable improvement resulting from an outcome that stakeholders regard as valuable.
Benefits management approach: The arrangements for identifying, measuring and reviewing benefits and disbenefits, including baselines, timing and ownership. Some reviews continue after the project management team has closed.
Business as usual: The continuing work that keeps an existing service or organisation operating. A project may change that work, but its temporary management arrangements have a different purpose.
Business case: The current reasoning and evidence for whether an investment remains worthwhile, considering benefits, costs and risks.
Business layer: The organisational level above the project board that commissions or sponsors the project and sets the board’s authority. Matters beyond the board’s project tolerance require attention at that higher level.

C

Change authority: The person or group authorised to decide specified changes within agreed limits. Responsibility for assessing a request does not automatically confer authority to approve it.
Change management approach: The arrangements that help people and their organisation move to a changed way of working and use the delivered capability. This differs from controlling a proposed change to a project baseline.
Checkpoint report: The team’s agreed progress information for the project manager about work-package delivery. It helps connect specialist work to management of the stage.
Commercial management approach: The project arrangements for commercial relationships, procurement and contractual interfaces. Supplier obligations should support clear project responsibilities rather than be mistaken for the entire governance model.
Communication management approach: The agreed arrangements for who needs what project information, for which purpose, through which channels and at what times. Feedback helps test whether communication has worked.
Contingent plan: A prepared response that will be carried out if a specified event or condition triggers it. Preparing the plan is different from taking the response action immediately.

D

Daily log: A working record for informal matters, actions and observations. A matter that needs formal assessment or escalation should be moved into the appropriate control rather than left only in personal notes.
Dependency: A relationship in which one product, decision or activity relies on another. Recognising external dependencies matters because the project may have limited control over them.
Digital and data management approach: The arrangements for using digital tools and managing project data, including availability, quality, security, ownership and suitable access. A dashboard is useful only if its information can support the intended decision.
Disbenefit: An expected negative consequence of an outcome, recognised in the investment assessment. It differs from a risk because the negative consequence is expected rather than uncertain.

E

End project report: A consolidated account of project performance, outcomes to date, remaining benefit expectations and useful learning at closure. It informs evaluation without replacing the board’s closure decision.
End stage report: An account of management-stage performance used with updated forecasts and next-stage proposals to support the board’s decision about further commitment.
Event-driven control: A control triggered by a particular occurrence, such as a stage end, an exception or a request for a decision. It complements regular reporting.
Exception: A forecast situation in which agreed delegated tolerances will be exceeded and a decision is needed at a higher level.
Exception plan: A proposed replacement for an affected plan after a forecast tolerance breach. Producing it does not authorise it; the appropriate management level decides whether to approve the replacement.
Exception report: Information that explains a forecast tolerance breach, its implications and the options requiring attention from the next authority.

F

Follow-on action recommendation: A matter that needs named attention after project closure, such as outstanding work or a future improvement. Closing the project should leave its ownership and intended handling clear.

H

Highlight report: Regular stage-progress information supplied by the project manager to the board. Routine reporting continues within tolerance; an exception requires timely escalation rather than waiting for the next report.

I

Issue: A matter requiring project management attention, such as a concern, a requested change or something that does not meet an agreed requirement.
Issue register: The record used to track issues, their assessment, decisions, ownership and resolution. An issue entry does not itself authorise a baseline change.
Issue report: Information supporting assessment and decision on a particular issue, including its effects, options and recommendation. Not every minor matter needs a separate lengthy report.

L

Leadership: Helping people understand a shared purpose, contribute their knowledge and commit to useful action. It complements planning and control, especially when work crosses team or organisational boundaries.
Lessons log: A changing record of useful experience identified before and during a project. Learning becomes valuable when someone evaluates and applies it, not merely when an entry is saved.
Lessons report: Selected learning communicated so that others can use it. It can be useful during a project as well as at the end; sharing only at closure can miss opportunities to improve current work.

M

Management approach: An agreed account of how a particular management concern will be handled, including responsibilities, procedures, tools and reporting. It should guide actual decisions rather than merely fill a template.
Management stage: A portion of the project used as a unit for planning, monitoring and governance authorisation.

O

Off-specification: A required result that is missing or does not, or is forecast not to, satisfy its agreed specification. It may require correction or an authorised decision about the deviation.
Outcome: A changed situation or behaviour enabled by using the project’s products.
Output: A product delivered by the project. Producing it does not by itself demonstrate that an outcome or benefit has been achieved.

P

Planning horizon: The limit beyond which detailed forecasts become insufficiently reliable. Plan near-term work at useful detail and refine later work as information improves.
Product: A required result that can be described, created and checked; it may be physical or intangible.
Product breakdown structure: A structured view of the products required by a plan. It describes what is needed rather than serving as a list of work activities or a dated schedule.
Product description: Information defining a product’s purpose, required characteristics and the basis for checking its quality.
Product flow diagram: A view of the sequence and dependencies between required products. It helps reveal what must exist before another product can be completed and informs subsequent activity planning.
Product register: The record of products needed for a plan and their current status, with references to their descriptions. It helps reveal whether products are actually complete and accepted.
Project: A temporary undertaking organised to create agreed products and enable a particular change.
Project assurance: Independent oversight of project conduct on behalf of the board’s business, user and supplier interests.
Project board: The governance team representing business, user and supplier interests and making key project authorisation decisions.
Project brief: A concise description of the proposed project developed during starting up. It combines enough definition, early investment reasoning and delivery context to support the decision about initiation.
Project context: The circumstances around a project, including its organisation, people, scale, uncertainty and delivery approach. These circumstances shape proportionate management arrangements.
Project executive: The individual accountable for the project’s overall success and investment justification. Other people can prepare business-case information without taking over that accountability.
Project initiation documentation: The agreed management foundations used to direct, manage and assess the project. It brings together the project definition, roles, plan, investment reasoning, approaches and controls; it need not be one physical document.
Project log: The collection of evolving project records, including risk, issue, quality and product registers and daily and lessons logs. A tool can hold these together without making their purposes interchangeable.
Project management: Coordinating people, plans and controls so a project can deliver its objectives within agreed constraints.
Project manager: The role that manages the project day to day on behalf of the board within agreed authority. Planning, coordination and reporting do not give unlimited power to change project commitments.
Project mandate: The initial instruction or information that gives a reason to examine a proposed project. Starting up develops this into a more useful basis for deciding whether initiation should be authorised.
Project plan: The overall view of how the project will deliver its products, including major timing, resources, costs and controls. Detailed stage planning develops within this wider picture.
Project product description: A description of the project’s overall required result, including its purpose, users’ quality expectations and acceptance arrangements. Individual product descriptions add detail for the products needed to create that result.
Project support: Practical assistance with project administration, information and management tools.

Q

Quality: How well something fulfils the requirements agreed for its intended use.
Quality assurance: Independent confidence that appropriate quality arrangements are in place and being used. It focuses on suitable quality processes and standards rather than simply repeating every product test.
Quality control: Checking particular products against the quality requirements agreed for them. A test result supports a product judgement; it does not by itself provide independent assurance of all project management.
Quality management approach: The project’s arrangements for specifying, checking and assuring quality, including standards, methods, responsibilities and records. It provides a common basis for product-level quality work.
Quality register: The record of planned and completed quality activities, including relevant results and responsibilities. It tracks checks; the product register tracks the required products and their status.
Quality tolerance: An agreed permitted range for a product quality requirement. A deviation outside that agreement cannot be made acceptable simply by calling it a minor variation.

R

Request for change: A proposal to alter an approved baseline. Assessment establishes its implications and the right decision-maker; submitting a request is not permission to implement it.
Risk: Uncertainty that could affect objectives positively or negatively, requiring an assessed and proportionate response.
Risk action owner: The person assigned to carry out a specific agreed risk response action. Several action owners may contribute to the response overseen by one risk owner.
Risk appetite: The broad amount and type of risk an organisation is willing to pursue or retain. Project-specific decision limits should be consistent with that wider attitude.
Risk owner: The person assigned to manage and monitor a particular risk and ensure that suitable responses are considered and followed through. This does not require personally carrying out every response action.
Risk proximity: How soon a risk could affect the project. Similar probability and impact do not make two risks equally urgent when one may occur next week and the other next year.
Risk register: The record of identified threats and opportunities, their assessment, ownership, responses and current position. It should change as uncertainty and response effectiveness change.
Risk tolerance: An agreed boundary for acceptable risk exposure at a particular management level. A forecast beyond that boundary calls for the appropriate higher-level decision.

S

Senior supplier: The board role representing those who provide the capability and resources to create the required products. It brings supplier feasibility and product-quality interests into governance.
Senior user: The board role representing the people who will use or be affected by the products and the expected benefits of that use. This role connects requirements, acceptance and intended value.
Stage plan: The detailed management plan for a stage, giving the basis for its work, monitoring and control.
Stakeholder: A person or group who can affect the project, is affected by it or perceives an interest in its results.
Stakeholder engagement: The continuing work of understanding and involving people with an interest in the project. Listening, feedback and adaptation matter as much as sending information.
Sustainability: A project performance concern involving agreed environmental, social and economic considerations. Targets should be made explicit and assessed alongside other performance commitments.

T

Tailoring: Making deliberate choices about how to apply the method in a particular setting while retaining its principles and clear responsibilities. Reducing paperwork alone does not describe every tailoring decision.
Team manager: The role responsible for coordinating the creation and delivery of products agreed in a work package. It keeps the project manager informed and raises matters outside its delegated limits.
Team plan: A team’s account of how it intends to deliver its agreed work, used where that extra planning is useful. It supports rather than replaces the work-package agreement.
Time-driven control: A control operating at agreed intervals, such as a weekly checkpoint or periodic highlight report. An urgent exception should not wait merely because the next scheduled report is later.
Tolerance: An agreed permitted variation around a plan, defining the boundaries of delegated authority.

W

Work package: The agreed information and authority for a team to create and deliver specified products within defined controls.