Core Concepts

Before you can use GreenVee confidently, you need six mental models. Everything else in the documentation — every page about tasks, budgets, risks, or materials — builds on the ideas here.

Read these pages in order the first time. They are short. After this section, every other part of the docs should feel like filling in details on a picture you already understand.

What’s in this section

• The Project at the Center — The Project entity is the hub of GreenVee. Everything either feeds into it or hangs off it. This page explains what a project is, its key fields, and the ring of data that surrounds it.

• Two Views of a Project — Every project has a work plan (what we will do) and a technical structure (what we are building). These two views exist in parallel. Understanding that distinction prevents a lot of confusion.

• Master Data vs. Project Data — Some records — employees, skills, goods, contacts — are reused across many projects. Others live inside exactly one project and go away when it closes. Knowing which is which tells you where to look for things and why some records can be edited freely while others carry project history.

• Project Lifecycle — A GreenVee project moves through seven defined phases from Initial idea to Successfully Closed (or Cancelled). Each phase has a distinct purpose and a different cast of active contributors. Gates act as checkpoints between phases.

• Risks and Chances — Every project tracks not just what could go wrong (Risks) but what could go better than planned (Chances). GreenVee treats both symmetrically — same structure, same rigor — with Risk Actions and Chance Actions as the respective response plans.

• Roles in GreenVee — GreenVee does not enforce job titles, but people use it in recognizably different ways depending on their role. This page describes the six common personas, what data they work with, and the questions they typically try to answer.

The mental model in one paragraph

A Project is the center of everything. It lives inside a Portfolio (and optionally a Program). It has two parallel descriptions: the work plan (tasks, milestones, gates) and the technical structure (what is being built). It is staffed by Project Members (employees assigned to it with a specific role and rate). It has a budget, tracked through cost items and occurrences. It carries risks and chances (tracked symmetrically, each with its own actions) and reports. The records it draws on — employees, goods, skills, suppliers — are master data shared across all projects. The records it generates — tasks, budgets, bookings, risk and chance entries — are project-scoped and live only as long as the project does.