Schedule
Common scheduling tool that graphically depicts all the tasks needed to complete a project, the sequence in which tasks must occur, and each task's duration.
Critical Path Method
The money needed to construct the building, including structure, exterior cladding, finishes, and electrical and mechanical systems, as well as the contractor's overhead and profit.
Building Cost
The portion of the exit access travel distance measured from the most remote point within a story to the point where the occupants have separate access to two exits or exit access doorways and can make a choice about which direction to go.
Common Path of Egress Travel
A formal, legally binding process for resolving disputes without litigation
Arbitration
A percentage of each payment is withheld until final completion of the work.
Retainage
The maximum length of time a noncritical task can be delayed or extended before it causes a delay.
Float
Cost of parking, drives, fences, landscaping, exterior lighting, and irrigation systems.
Site Development Costs
Includes stairs, corridors, toilet rooms, mechanical rooms, closets, and interior partition thickness when calculating occupant load.
Gross Floor Area
Any representations of the tangible and intangible creative work of the architect and the architect's consultants. Includes studies, surveys, models, sketches, drawings, specs, etc.
Instruments of Service
Instructs the contractor to proceed with the stated changes in the work, even if the contractor does not agree with the basis for adjustment in contract sum or contract time.
Construction Change Directive
The period from the starting date established in the agreement to the time of substantial completion, including any authorized adjustments.
Contract Time
Architectural and engineering fees as well as costs for services such as topographic surveys, soil tests, special consultants, appraisals, and legal consultation.
Professional Services
A fire-resistance rated wall that is used to separate a single structure into separate construction types or to provide for allowable area increases by creating what amounts to separate buildings.
Fire Wall
A written or graphic document issued by the architect during the bid period prior to the execution of the contract, that modifies or interprets the bidding documents by addition, deletion, clarification, or correction.
Addendum
A claim by one party against the property of another party for the satisfaction of a debt.
Mechanic's Lien
The ratio of time that a person spends working on billable tasks to the total amount of time worked.
Utilization Ratio
Expenses paid by the architect that are directly related to the project.
Reimbursable Expenses
The ratio of the gross floor area within a structure to the area of the lot on which the structure is situated.
Floor Area Ratio
A written order by the architect directing the contractor to make a minor change that does not involve modification to the contract sum or time and is consistent with the contract documents.
Minor Change in the Work
Method of budgeting where the project is broken down into its individual building components and the labor needed to install them.
Unit Costing
An approach for estimating fees where the PM begins by breaking the project down into individual tasks and estimating how much time will be needed to complete each one.
Bottom Up Approach
Fees paid by the contractor to the owner for every day the project is late.
Liquidated Damages
A zoning technique that establishes an imaginary inclined plane beginning at the lot line or the center of the street at a given elevation and slopes at a prescribed angle toward and over the lot. The building cannot extend beyond this plane.
Bulk Plane Restriction
The architect's estimated cost of a particular material or piece of equipment when the actual cost cannot be precisely determined at the time of the bid or negotiated proposal.
Allowance
A method for determining the total cost of a building, building component, or system over the expected life of the building.
Life Cycle Cost Analysis