project management glossary

skunk works

 An American slang term coined to refer to a group who are seen to be not part of the formal organizational hierarchy and hence are relatively free of executive interference. They are left to do "their own thing", apparently very successfully.

 A collocated project environment to shorten communication paths and to keep functional contributors close to one another and to the project activity centers.

 See also Quick Reaction Capability.

slack

 Term used in PERT for float.

 Originally the flexibility in the dates of an event in an activity on arrow network i.e. (late event time - early event time). Latterly used synonymously with float, mainly in software originating in America.

 See also Float.

slack time

 The amount of time a task can slip before it affects another task's dates or the project finish date.

 In a network diagram, the amount of time on any path other than the critical path that is the difference between the time to a common node on the critical path and the other path.