Project Charter Anatomy

Here, we are going to discuss about main body of the Project Charter, Introduction pages, Index etc are common components and need not be discussed here.

You’ll find many versions for Project Charter and none of these versions are wrong neither they are absolutely fit to be used as is in any Project. Reason! Whenever we are talking about any standard or a generic document, it is based on acceptable practices. However, your project is always unique and so are its requirements.

It is very easy to search a Project Charter Template and use it but more important is to understand whether it is applicable to your project or not.  Here we’ll discuss about the various components of Project Charter so that you can take an informed decision and develop your own Project Charter template for your project.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Every project has a reason behind its selection.  It is supposed to develop some product or service, fulfill some requirement or solve a problem.

Executive summary in the Project Charter provides high level information of the cause for which the project is selected, basic background, expectations and justification.

PROJECT JUSTIFICATION

This is one of the major purposes of the Project Charter.  Here we get the details of Project Justification.  It may include below subsections:

                

Business Case: 

It clarifies the need of the Project and intended effect.  Sometimes, the business case itself may be a large and may be developed as a separate document.

Business Objectives: 

Here the project is aligned with the Organizational goals/Objectives.  Sometimes, Business objective is included in Business case. In such cases, Business Objective section may not be required.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

This section provides high level information about the project.  May include-

• Name of the Project.
• How it will be done.
• High level criteria of Project completion.

It may have below subsections: 

OBJECTIVE AND SUCCESS CRITERIA: 

This is very important section as without clear objective and success criteria, a project cannot be completed to the satisfaction.  As in any other case, the objective or Goal should be SMART:

S: Specific (no vague requirement like “A good Solution”)

M: Measurable (Rather than writing a tall pillar, one should clearly write 5 mtr tall pillar)

A: Achievable (Running a project to clean a river in 1 day may not be an achievable target)

R: Realistic ( The Project target should not be an unrealistic target like getting 105 marks out of 100 marks exam)

T: Time-Bound (Time target is very important else the project will keep running and loose its value at the end.) 

REQUIREMENTS: 

Mentions all High level Project Requirements. Remember, this is not a Scope document.  High level requirements come up from high level stakeholders like Project Sponsor, Prme Customer etc.

CONSTRAINTS: 

Scope, Time, Cost, Quality and Human Resources are five major constraints.  Constraints related to each must be clearly documented here.

ASSUMPTIONS:   

Every Project to run, we take some assumption.  These should be documented here.  Ex-

1.  Resources assigned to the Project shall be available till end of the Project.
2.  Organizational support is available for the project. Etc… 

RISKS:

Every project has some risks and opportunities.  Initial High level risks and their responses must be mentioned here.  Further, it’ll be documented in Risk Register.

PROJECT DELIVERABLE: 

List of Deliverable are documented here. 

SUMMARY MILESTONE SCHEDULE:

Detailed Project Plan is not expected here because planning starts once Charter is signed.  Here we document only milestone schedule. Like-

• Project Start Date
• Planning completion and execution Kick-off date.
• UAT completion date.
• Final Implementation
• Closure deadline 

SUMMARY BUDGET:

This section of the Project Charter should provide brief information about budget.  Project Budget/ Cost is majorly divided into below parts-

•  Fixed cost or Capital Cost
•  Taxes
•  Variable Cost or Labor cost
•  Others
•  Gross Margin (in Projects Run for Client) 

APPROVALS:

Authorized approvers for sign-off of deliverables and Project completion are defined and assigned here. 

PROJECT MANAGER:

This is another very important section of Project Charter.  This section documents Name, responsibility and authority levels of the project manager.  This is the section that authorizes the Project Manager to work on the project.  Expectations from Project Manager are also defined here.