This is what we will look at today as part of my series on project management fundamentals - if you missed previous posts, we've so far covered the differences between projects and operations as well as those between projects, programmes and portfolios, the DARCI model for stakeholder engagement and how to run an effective project kick-off meeting.
Now, let's get into our topic for today.
The project charter is the formal, relatively short document that describes the most important thing about your project - its objectives, benefits to be achieved, the scope incl. key deliverables and timelines, the people to be involved, KPIs for the project and any known/expected risks.
According to PMBOK, the project charter officially authorises the project and as such, you can begin working on it as it gives you the authority to do so as the project manager.
It's basically the beginning of any project as without this key information, you can't really start working on anything (at least not effectively).
There are a few reasons why a project charter is necessary:
Often, the project charter is a one-page document that summarises the most important information that allows you to begin with the project.
I personally like to use a deck, especially if I come into the project a little bit later because it allows me to create the project charter in a workshop with the key stakeholders. I can then easily socialise this deck as well.
But typically it's a document so I looked online for some templates to give you an idea and the best I found comes from Expert Program Management.
As I mentioned, I like using a deck instead of a document which basically has each of these key areas from the template above per slide and I usually tend to put project description, scope and business case on the same slide. For stakeholders, I like to use DARCI directly as it helps me know who to deal with for what when we start drilling into the details of the deliverables.
Have you ever created a project charter?
Here's how I use a deck instead of a document for my project charters: