For a project charter for anyone who’s not familiar with what a project charter is we use a project charter to initiate a project this is typically the first document that you would create. Once a project is assigned to you sometimes the project charter is created before and then hand it over to you.
Sometimes it’s created by yourself and so you should know how to develop a project charter anyone whose PMP certified probably knows what a charter is but may not necessarily have developed. One maybe because your organization doesn’t develop one some organizations may call it a PID a project initiation document. That’s because they’re using a prince2 terminology no matter what we call it the project charter is supposed to do a couple of things assign you to project.
So, everybody knows that you own this one project this way if you need any help then people can probably help you on it and number two highlight. The key objectives of that project including scope time and cost why don’t we go ahead and take.
What the project charter looks like, and I want you to hang on as I discussed this I will share the link to where you can download this one document because I promise that I will include it in here. it’s a very simple project charter that I think will do the job wherever you are
so let’s go ahead and take a look at the project charter so here’s the Charter here what you’ll see one of the first things that I want you to notice is that this is a two-page document you can see that it says page 1 of 2 the document doesn’t have to be that long it is only supposed to highlight the key objectives or constraints. The project has to work with let’s take a look at the content of the project charter number one it has a title this sample that I’m showing you is for moving 100 people from a building from one building to the other so it says move off workplaces of 100 employees from building a row building be some organizations may want to include a project team may be a set of numbers and letters that they can use to reference. This specific project that is up to you by the way none of what you see here is mandatory so it’s your choice but some of it really has to be there like the start date and proposed end date so you could write proposed end date, or you could write end date.
This is when the project team is starting June 1st and this is where it’s ending on June 15th this is a two weeks project team the budget that we have for this one move is $30,000 now mind you although we have a beginning date and an ending date and a budget it doesn’t really mean that you will you know a hundred percent stick to these you use these as guidelines.
You will understand the requirements that this move is going to have or whatever the project is that you have and then figure out the time frame and then the budget right so you want to get it as close as your management’s objective so they want this done as soon as possible by June 15th I know it says 2015 they want it done by then and they want to spend only 100 only $30,000 so you want to try to fit that within the budget and the time frame that they gave you the project.
This one project what it intended to be is a high-level scope of the project. Here move off workplaces and personal things for 100 employees I’m reading this for 100 employees from building a to building be the scope includes setting up the IT network at the new location set up partitions at the new location pack all personal belongings in boxes and seal them wrap all furniture arrange for vehicle to do the move all items the new location and unpack and set up their tests all electrical network connections on-site monitoring for five days.
This Charter is to authorize me the project manager to work on the project or if you’re the PM I am the sponsor and me and you are agreeing. You want to see the Charter as an organizational Memorandum of Understanding MOU it is never going to be a contract not in this not in this form in shape this is an internal document between you and your management on what this project team requires so the scope of work.