What Is a Project Charter in Project Management?
A project charter is a formal, typically short document that describes your project in its entirety — including what the objectives are, how it will be carried out, and who the stakeholders are. It is a crucial ingredient in planning the project because it is used throughout the project lifecycle.
What is a project charter in project management? A charter overview
The project charter typically documents:
- Reasons for the project
- Objectives and constraints of the project
- The main stakeholders
- Risks identified
- Benefits of the project
- General overview of the budget
How to create a project charter
- Understand project goals and objectives: Identify the project vision and determine the scope of the project
- Define project organization: List all of the essential roles for the project, including customers, stakeholders, and the day-to-day project team
- Create an implementation plan: Outline major milestones, dependencies, and the timeline for the entire team and stakeholders
- List potential problem areas: This isn’t about being a downer, and more instead about being realistic. Adding potential risks and issues to the project charter helps everyone think ahead and even prevents potential roadblocks.
Tips for writing a project management charter
Ready to create your own project charter? Here are a few other helpful tips to keep in mind as you work through the above steps.
1. Rely on insights from your team: Don’t feel like you need to work out all this information on your own. Pull together some of your project team members to pick their brains about goals, milestones, and potential problem areas. Gathering their insights will help you create a far more accurate project charter.
2. Keep it short and straightforward: It’s tempting to get lost in the amount of information available. But, keep in mind that your project charter is supposed to be a high-level overview of your project and not a breakdown that covers every detail. Each section of your charter should only require a sentence or two. Additionally, charts and bulleted lists will help you present the information in an organized and digestible way.
3. Create a template: After you realize how helpful a project charter is, you’ll undoubtedly want one for all your team’s projects. Don’t waste time reinventing the wheel. Create a simple template that you can copy and use for all your project charters. Not only will it eliminate some manual effort, but it will also ensure you don’t miss any elements.
Project charter example
Imagine that you and your team are putting together a webinar to generate some new leads. Here’s what a simple project charter could look like.
Company XYZ Project Charter
Project Name: “Building a Positive Company Culture” Webinar
Project Description: A one-hour webinar featuring insights from three employee engagement experts
Business Case: Supports our company-wide goals of:
1. Increasing sales by 28% this quarter
2. Establishing Company XYZ as a thought leader in the employee engagement space
Project Deliverables:
1. Landing page for webinar signups
2. One-hour webinar
3. Webinar recording for continued lead generation
Project Benefits:
1. Boosted reputation
2. Lead generation
3. Resource we can continue to promote
Project Risks:
1. Technical difficulties
2. This is our first webinar, and the team lacks this expertise
Project Budget:
Not to exceed $3,000
Project Milestones:
Landing page launched: October 15, 2020
Slides completed: October 26, 2020
Live webinar: November 4, 2020
Project Team Members:
Project Manager: Thai V.
Designer: Greta K.
Webinar Participant/Expert: Jason B.
Webinar Participant/Expert: Safiya M.
Webinar Participant/Expert: Rachel C.
Webinar Host: Tom S.
Social Media Coordinator: Ander B.
Email Marketing Coordinator: Nancy R.
Further reading:
- 10 Steps to a Kickass Project Kickoff: A Checklist for Project Managers
- Project Management Basics: 6 Steps to a Foolproof Project Plan
- 10 Reasons the Death Star Project Failed (Infographic)
