Create a Project CharterProject Charter

The charter is a project's best marketing tool. It is created at the very start of the project,

when the selling of the project's goals and ideas needs to begin. It is an ideal place to

document the relationships between the project and the organizational strategy. Yet the

charter is one of the least talked about deliverables in project management. Scheduling

and communication have generated far more attention.

Too many project managers accept a limited role in the framing of the charter. The

project manager does not need to write the charter, but the project manager has a role

in the process. The project manager needs to demand an adequate charter, and be

prepared to create one for the sponsor, if the sponsor does not provide it on his or her

own.

Some project managers fail to get an adequate charter because they do not recognize

the key components of a charter. A charter should be simple, straightforward, and short,

but it must contain certain key elements. Once the basic components of a charter are

clear, it is possible to give it a central role in the organization. The charter has a critical

influence on any application of organizational strategy, organizational project maturity,

program management, and portfolio management.

The charter has grown in importance and visibility in recent years. The third edition of A

Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge $($PMBOK$.$ Guide$)$ added a new

process "Develop Project Charter," making it a more visible deliverable than in the $2000$

edition. That document remains an exception, though, with many program and portfolio

management experts giving little attention to this vital project management step. There

is an opportunity for more integration of the charter into enterprise$-$wide approaches to

project management.

What is a Charter?

The PMBOK. Guide, $3$Edition defines a project charter as "a document issued by the

project initiator or sponsor that formally authorizes the existence of a project, and

provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to

project activities." $($PMI$,2004,368)$ The key word in this definition is "authority." It

authorizes both the project and the project manager.

The PMBOK. Guide lists specific information that the charter should provide, either

directly or by reference, including:

Requirements

Business needs

Summary schedule

Assumptions and constraints

Business case, including return on investment

This list is normative, providing guidance on what a charter "should" provide. A

document can still be a charter, even if it omits one of more of the information items on

the list. If a return$-$on$-$investment $($ ROI $)$ calculation were truly required for a project

charter, then few projects could be said to have a charter; experts still argue over

whether an ROI calculation is meaningful for regulatory or mandated projects and many

IT projects lack ROI analysis.

Some project managers may be misled by the word "document" in the definition and by

the specific list of information in PMBOK. They fear that they do not have a project

charter unless they have a specific document formatted with certain

headings. PMBOK. Guide does not mandate the use of any specific document format,

and project charters can take many forms. Often the charter appears in the form of a

free$-$form e$-$mail or memo.

The definition itself gives the critical questions that determine, "Does a project have a

charter? ${?}^n$ These questions are:

Does the sponsor know the project exists, and does the sponsor agree that it should

exist? $($authorize existence$)$

Does the sponsor know who the project manager is and does he or she support that

person's leadership of the project? $($authorize the project manager$)$

Has the sponsor given the project manager authority over money, people, and other

organizational resources, in order to accomplish that project? $($authority to apply

resources$)$

Has the sponsor ever written an e$-$mail, written a memo, spoken at a meeting

$($preferably a meeting with documented minutes$)$ indicating, even implicitly, a "Yes"

answer to the questions above?

A "yes" answer to these questions means that the project has a charter. Restated this

way, it is clear that all successful projects must at some point have been chartered. If a

project were not chartered, the project manager would likely be fired for insubordination

if he or she expended any time, money, or other resources on it$.$ In most organizations,

it is not possible to make progress without authorization from someone.

Common Misconceptions about Charters

The term "project charter" is often misunderstood. Less$-$experienced project managers

often believe that it must be a very formal document. The word "charter" is used in

English to describe executed contracts or deeds, often founding papers for cities,

educational institutions, or even governmental bodies. Traditio