A Guide for Crafting Project Charters
What should you put in your project charter? It depends on the environment of the project. Below are some guidelines on what to consider when crafting your project charter. I also list down possible sections and some considerations on when you should use them
The project sponsor issues the project charter, not the project manager.
Project charters should be short. The best are one‐pagers. Attention is a scarce resource. Don’t distract your audience with non‐essentials!
Things to consider when crafting a project charter
What is this project?
How does it help the company / align to the bigger strategy?
Who are the powers that define this project?
What could lead to false expectations (scope, time, resources)?
What do you need from them (budget, people, authority, etc)?
How do you prep them for your success (setting the right expectations)?
How do you set the right expectations?
How do you use the project charter for the good of the project, the organization, your boss, your team, your career?
Possible sections of a project charter
Project name.
Project scope statement. A description of what the project is. Go into specifics: What kinds of ____ is it? When should it be completed? Other constraints (cost targets, quality descriptions, etc). A good example of a project scope statement is a sentence in Kennedy’s speech on the US lunar mission:
"I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."
Business justification. Why should the business spend money and assign resources to this project? What’s in it for the business? If you have a strategic plan, it is best to use some of its exact words and connect it to the project.
Project Board. Whose authority do you need for the project? This includes the project sponsor (the champion of the project; your protector and your conduit to upper management), and the top few managers of the people you need in your project team. You should make them share the success (or failure!) of the project.
Project Milestones. If you need to highlight key points in the schedule, use a milestone chart with a few milestones. This could include the start, the kick‐ off and the completion of the project, as well as any key date that you need to reinforce into the consciousness of the project organization.
Key assumptions or key risks. If the project has major risks or has major dependencies on certain assumptions (eg, availability of a certain person), highlight them to make sure there is alignment of the understanding between key stakeholders of the difficulties or assumptions in the project.
Budget. To ensure that the project board knows how much the project would cost. This facilitates the approval of the money you need to get the project going.
Objectives or key performance indicators (KPI’s). An extension of the project scope statement. This makes the description of the project clearer by being more specific on how its success will be measured.
Examples