The Project Charter

What's the Project Charter

The project charter is a document that contains concise the answers to the fundamental questions of the project: what are the objectives of the project , the requirements high level, the assumption and the risks known from the start.

The meaning of Project Charter

Project charter means 'guiding document' or project definition document. The project charter of the PIM methodology is comparable to the Project Initiation Document of the Prince 2 methodology

The Project Charter in plain English

The project charter is a document that describes what the high-level project consists of. It is a document that needs to be approved by the Sponsor of the project as is the document that formally authorizes the start of the project .

It is good to remember that the project manager should be appointed before the drafting of the Project Charter and that the project charter itself should be written by the Project Manager, who then has the sponsor sign it. for approval.

In the project charter we can insert various elements that better define the project such as the objectives, the business case, the key stakeholders, the deliverables, the high level product requirements, the project team, the risks and the assumptions, a rough timing and success criteria of the project . The elements of the project charter do not necessarily have to be always the same even though a complete project charter will contain almost all of the above elements.

Once the project charter has been signed by the person with the authority to approve it, it is not modified except in the event of change requests or events that occur that oblige a modification of the project charter. For example, they can be a change in the feasibility conditions of the project, for example one of the assumptions proves to be untrue and therefore a necessary condition for the project is missing. At that point it is the responsibility of the project manager to return to the project charter signatory to present the issue and discuss what to do.

All the information contained in the Project Charter is of a high level , for example the gantt chart will necessarily be quite generic because at this stage the detailed planning has not yet been done. Detailed planning takes place in rolling mode, i.e. as the project progresses, the activities closest to us are planned in detail in time. This planning methodology is called Rolling wave planning .

The PMI definition of Project Charter

Elements of the Project Charter

§ Name of the project

§ Sponsor or owner of the project (generally the client or the owner of the budget)

§ Project Manager (name and surname). The project manager generally contributes to draft the Project Charter together with the Sponsor.

§ Business Case : the reason for undertaking a project must always be sought in the expected benefits. The benefits that must be economically exploited and must be compared with the costs of the project.

§ Project objectives which must be measurable

§ The main outputs of the project in terms of objects, products, changes. Includes: project documentation, user and maintenance manuals, developed software, hardware, contracts, products, metrics.

§ A project timetable with the main milestones or checkpoints or phases.

§ Budget : costs and resources. In this phase the budget can be estimated at ROM level, i.e. Rough Order of Magnitude which means with a margin of error of +/- 30%

§ Team : a rough indication of who the project team will be.

§ Assumptions / Constraints. For example, the client may have strictly required completion of the project by a certain date. In this paragraph, the constraints coming from outside must be indicated, which therefore you cannot control in project management.

§ Risks , a list of the main risk factors that may already be known at this stage and any mitigating actions to reduce the probability of occurrence or reduce the damage.

§ Required approvals and sponsor's signature