Updated
Project Management Glossary
24 project and task management terms, defined in plain English — no jargon explaining jargon.
Backlog
A prioritized list of work that hasn't been started yet. A healthy backlog is short and ordered — a graveyard of forgotten ideas is not a backlog, it's clutter.
Blocker
Anything preventing a task from moving forward — a missing decision, a dependency on another team, a bug in a shared library. Blockers should be flagged the moment they're discovered.
Burndown Chart
A chart showing remaining work versus time in a sprint. A healthy burndown trends toward zero by the sprint's end; a flat line early on signals the sprint is already behind.
Burnup Chart
Like a burndown, but tracks completed work upward instead of remaining work downward — useful because it also shows when scope is added mid-sprint.
Cycle Time
The time a task takes from when work actually starts to when it's done. Unlike lead time, it excludes time spent waiting in the backlog.
Dependency
A task that can't start or finish until another task completes. Chains of dependencies are the most common cause of schedule slippage.
Epic
A large body of work too big to complete in a single sprint, broken down into smaller tasks or stories that each deliver a piece of it.
Kanban
A visual method for managing work as it flows through stages (columns), using WIP limits to control how much is in progress at once.
Lead Time
The total time from when a task is requested to when it's delivered — including time spent waiting in the backlog before work even starts.
Milestone
A significant point in a project's timeline marking the completion of a phase or a major deliverable — used for tracking progress at a higher level than individual tasks.
Retrospective (Retro)
A recurring meeting where the team reflects on what worked, what didn't, and what to change — most useful when it ends with one specific, owned action item.
Scrum
An agile framework organizing work into fixed-length sprints, with defined roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, team) and ceremonies (planning, standup, review, retro).
Sprint
A fixed time box — usually 1-4 weeks — in which a team commits to completing a defined set of work, then reviews and plans the next one.
Standup
A short, recurring sync (traditionally daily) where each team member shares what they did, what they're doing next, and any blockers.
Story Point
A relative unit of estimation representing the effort, complexity, and uncertainty of a task — deliberately not a direct measure of hours.
Swimlane
A horizontal row on a board used to group tasks by category, team, or priority — separate from the columns, which represent workflow stages.
Task
The smallest unit of trackable work — a single, concrete action with one owner and a clear definition of done.
Throughput
The number of tasks a team completes in a given time period — a raw count that, tracked over time, reveals capacity trends independent of estimation.
Timeline (Gantt)
A horizontal-bar view of tasks plotted against dates, showing duration, dependencies, and overlap — best suited to projects with fixed milestones.
User Story
A short description of a feature from the end user's perspective, typically in the form 'As a [user], I want [goal], so that [benefit].'
Velocity
The average amount of work (usually in story points) a team completes per sprint — used to forecast how much future work will fit in upcoming sprints.
WIP Limit
A cap on how many tasks can be in a given workflow stage at once. WIP limits are what force a team to finish work before starting more.
Workflow
The sequence of stages a task moves through from creation to completion — the columns on a kanban board are a visual representation of a workflow.
Workload View
A view showing how much work is assigned to each person, used to spot overloaded team members before a deadline is at risk.
See These Terms in Action
My First Task's boards, sprints, and reporting put every one of these concepts to work — free for teams up to 10.