Encyclopedia — Letter S
23 entries in Project Management & Project Controls beginning with S.
S-Curve
A cumulative plot of planned, earned, or actual project quantity against time, used to visualise progress, productivity, and forecasting.
Scaffolding Inspection Register
The statutory log of scaffold inspections — every seven days, after alteration, after weather — that determines whether the scaffold may be used, and who carries the legal risk if it is used when it should not be.
Schedule Compression
Techniques to shorten the schedule without reducing scope — primarily crashing (adding resources) and fast-tracking (overlapping activities) — used when end-date pressure exceeds the original plan.
Scope Management
The discipline of defining, controlling, and protecting what the project will and will not deliver, from charter through handover.
Sectional Completion
A contractual mechanism that allows discrete sections of the works to reach practical completion — and to trigger their own damages, warranties and defect periods — independently of the rest of the project.
Service Level Indicator (SLI)
A quantitative measurement of a service's behaviour — such as request success rate or latency at the 99th percentile — that expresses reliability in numbers the users actually experience.
Service Level Objective (SLO)
The measurable, agreed target for a service's reliability — the number that decides whether the team ships new features next week or fixes reliability instead.
Service-Level Objective
A measurable reliability target — typically expressed as a percentage over a time window — that defines how reliable a service needs to be to satisfy users, and against which engineering trade-offs are made.
Shop Drawing
A detailed fabrication or installation drawing prepared by the contractor, subcontractor, or supplier that translates design intent into buildable, dimensioned instructions.
Site Instruction
A written direction from the contract administrator or engineer to the contractor to carry out, vary or clarify work on site — the contractual mechanism that turns a verbal decision into an enforceable action.
Site Logistics Plan
The drawing-and-narrative package that shows how a construction site will physically operate — access, deliveries, laydown, cranes, welfare, and traffic — through each major phase of the works.
Site Mobilization Plan
The staged plan for turning a raw site into an operating construction workplace — access, welfare, utilities, permits, security — sequenced so the first productive activity can start on the day the schedule assumes it will.
Snagging Process
The systematic identification, logging, and closure of minor defects on a construction project before handover — the industry's most under-appreciated cost centre.
Snagging Register
The live list of small defects, unfinished work and cosmetic issues identified as a project approaches completion — the difference between a handover that lands and one that drags for months.
Spike (Agile)
A time-boxed investigation used when a story cannot be estimated or designed without further research or prototyping.
Sprint Goal Discipline
The practice of committing every sprint to a single, testable outcome — the goal — and using it to say no to everything that does not serve it.
Sprint Retrospective
A time-boxed agile ceremony at the end of each sprint where the team inspects how it worked together and commits to specific improvements for the next sprint.
Sprint Zero
A short pre-delivery sprint used to establish the environment, tooling, backlog, and team norms needed before productive delivery sprints begin.
Stakeholder Engagement
The structured planning and execution of communications and relationships with parties whose support, indifference, or opposition shape project outcomes.
Story Points
A relative, unitless estimate of effort that captures complexity, uncertainty, and volume in a single number — and works only when teams resist the urge to convert them back into hours.
Story Slicing
The craft of breaking a large user story into smaller stories that each deliver end-to-end value, fit within a sprint, and can be independently accepted.
Submittal Management
The structured process of reviewing and approving shop drawings, product data, and samples that translate the design intent into what is actually fabricated and installed.
Swarming
The practice of temporarily concentrating a whole team on a single high-priority item — story, incident, or blocker — until it is finished, rather than working many items in parallel.
Frequently Asked Questions
What encyclopedia entries are listed under the letter S?
23 project management and project controls entries beginning with S, including S-Curve, Scaffolding Inspection Register, Schedule Compression. The full A–Z reference is at the PMMilestone Encyclopedia.How are letter-paginated encyclopedia pages organised on PMMilestone Research & Insights?
Each letter page lists every entry whose primary term starts with that letter, sorted alphabetically. Entries are research-grade — definition, principles, applications, related entries and FAQs — written by Dr. Hassan Eliwa, PhD, Founder of PMMilestone.org.Which calculators and templates pair with letter S entries?
Most entries cross-link to companion tools on the flagship platform — the EVM Calculator, SPI Calculator, CPI Calculator, Schedule Health Checker and Risk Register Template. Each individual entry FAQ block names the specific calculator that applies.Where can I look up a one-line definition instead of the full encyclopedia entry?
Use the PM Glossary on PMMilestone.org for single-line definitions. The encyclopedia here is the long-form, citation-grade reference.