ANYTHING YOU MIGHT NEED TO PREPARE A GOOD PROJECT CHARTER: TEMPLATES, SAMPLES, GUIDE TO HOW TO CREATE IT AND EVEN TUTORIAL VIDEOS. ALL MATERIALS ARE FREE TO USE.

Hi there! We created this toolkit to simplify making a project charter document for you. We noticed that it is hard to find a good template, samples, and guide gathered in one source. So, we hope this toolkit will help you find all the info in one cozy place.

If you are familiar with a project charter – go straight to templates and samples. If not, please scroll down to the guide section or video tutorials where you find all the information you might need.

Enjoy!

This guide covers everything you need to know about the project charter. It is based on the template you can download here.

A project charter is a central document that defines the fundamental information about a project and is used to authorize it.

In a nutshell, a charter provides a picture of where you are going, why you are going there, who will be impacted, the main risks involved, and who is going to help you. It’s crucial that the charter not only establishes basic information but also that it reflects the key stakeholders’ common vision.

A project charter is typically created early in the project lifecycle, hopefully before the project is staffed and the business is running for delivery date. It is usually created collaboratively as a team and shared with stakeholders upon completion. In most cases, the charter is signed off for approval by project sponsors.

It’s some kind of must-have document for any project.

The project charter is a document. There is no universal formula for a project charter. It can either brief or as long as 50 pages. But the more detailed it is the less chance that someone will actually read it. We believe that you do want your project charter to be read, so try to keep your project charter to a maximum of 5 pages. Ideally, it should be 1-2 pages.
 

Usually, project charters are text documents or google documents, although it can be a presentation, too. Take a look at a template or sample sections to see how a real charter looks.

Absolutely yes. Here are two killer benefits supporting why you must use project charters:

• You circulate a big picture of your project amongst key stakeholders. It’s crucial that the common vision of basic parameters and structure be the same for everyone, especially during the initial stage of your project when there are so many uncertain or vague things. 
  
  It will drastically decrease your problems with miscommunications and eventually save a ton of your time (because we all know that one thing might look absolutely different from someone else’s perspective). 

• Basic information about your project is gathered in one place. Without establishing things like: Why are you undertaking this project? What do you consider to be a project success? How will you measure this success? Without these benchmark questions, you'll feel like as though you're aimlessly wandering, never quite knowing if you're heading in the right direction.

We suggest using the following sections:

1. Background

Give a straightforward answer to the question: ‘why are you doing this project?’
Describe what problem it solves and what gave you the opportunity to make your idea a reality. Try to articulate this section as if you’re trying to hire a complete stranger and you need to briefly explain the basic elements of your project.

2. Goals

Describe what goals you are going to achieve and when. It’s crucial that your goals be specific and measurable (SMART). For example, “Significantly increase customer satisfaction level” is a bad goal because it’s up to interpretation as to whether or not you’ve met it. However, “Increase retention rate from 5% till 10% by the end of 2015” is a good one.

It’s essential that upon reading over your goals you clearly understand what you consider to be a successful part of your project and how you measure that.

3. Scope

What product, service, or result do you expect to get from this project? What actions will your team take to undertake the project?

It’s also important to mention what your team will not do. For example, your end product is “a new website for a public library”. You will develop and design it. But will you test it, set it up or fill this site with content? Try to make it absolutely clear what you are going to do and what you aren’t. It helps you eliminate any confusion in the future.

4. Key Stakeholders

Make a list of people involved in your project. Some sort of who is who in it: PM, sponsor, client, and team members. If you don’t know the names of individuals, list the title of the required position and department.
 

5. Project Milestones

Establish significant dates of your project: start date, end date, invoicing dates. It’s important to understand that these dates are merely guesses. When writing the charter you don’t have firm dates yet.

6. Project Budget

Make a note of the main project expenses. Treat them as rough estimations. Try to make note of non-recurring and monthly recurring costs separately.

7. Constraints, Assumptions, Risks and Dependencies.

Constraints:

These are the limiting factors that impact your project in a particular way. For example, when developing a new website the number of available programmers and technical limitations (platform, coding language, etc.) must be considered.

Assumptions:

Factors that you are relying on in order to succeed in your project. These factors are considered to be true but without including proof. A few assumptions: contractors will be paid without delay and your client will test the website.

Risks:

Anything that might get in the way of you and your team when you’re trying to accomplish your project goals. Make sure to carefully weigh in on this point and clearly articulate the risks. A few examples:

• Tight timeframe. The deadline doesn’t allow for any force majeure circumstances
• Part of the team are volunteers with no-money motivation –which may mean that you’ll have to find and train new project participants.
• Technical risks: i.e. part of the platform where you’re planning on setting up your website may be open-source and may not be updated.

Dependencies:

An absolutely essential part of the project. For a new website, it’d be client-driven content.

Don’t do it alone. The best way to create a charter is to do it with your entire team by having a project charter session. Get everyone together and cover the main points in the document. You may notice that many participants will have different perspectives on the project and that’s excellent. You’ll reach a consensus during the discussion.

But keep in mind that making a project charter is an interactive process. After the project charter session writes a rough draft and sends it to all project participants. Gather their feedback and update the document. Discuss and finalize the document one more time and have the project sponsor sign it once it’s been approved.

Here’s a free project charter template you might use with this guide. If you think you need more information – browse the video tutorials and check out articles in the additional information section.

If you think that something is missed here, please let us know by dropping us an email at nick @ casual.pm

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You may also check out other toolkits crafted by Casual: Project coordinator, Project proposal and Project brief. Looking for more document templates? Please check SlothDocs.