Industry glossary
Terms you will meet in the documents, systems and scenarios.
Retainer
An ongoing engagement where the client pays a fixed monthly fee for an agreed scope of services and access to the engagement lead.
Engagement letter
The signed document that sets out the scope, deliverables, fees, responsibilities and terms of a client engagement before work starts.
Delegation
The authority attached to a role to approve a decision or expenditure up to a stated limit, recorded in the delegations register.
Australian Privacy Principles
The thirteen principles in the Privacy Act 1988 that govern how organisations collect, use, store, disclose and give access to personal information.
Notifiable data breach
Unauthorised access to, disclosure of or loss of personal information that is likely to result in serious harm and must be notified to affected individuals and the regulator.
Non-conformance
A failure to meet a requirement of a policy, procedure, standard or law, found through an audit, incident or complaint and recorded for corrective action.
Corrective action
Action taken to eliminate the root cause of a non-conformance so that it does not recur, as distinct from a fix for the immediate problem.
Baseline
The approved version of a project's scope, schedule and budget against which progress and changes are measured.
Change request
A formal proposal to alter a project's baseline, assessed for its impact on scope, time and cost and approved before the change is made.
Psychosocial hazard
A feature of work design, management or the workplace, such as excessive workload or poor support, that can cause psychological harm.