The Project Charter

At the start of a project, the project manager is sometimes lost regarding all works he should do. He doesn't know how to start, everything is urgent and important. Do we have to do a planning, or staff his team ? Or rather, list the deliverables. Or to flatten the budget ?

Our advice: start at the beginning ... And the beginning is the project charter.

The project charter, which will also be called the project brief in the PRINCE2® vocabulary, is a fundamental management deliverable for framing and starting a project. The project charter will describe the key and key points of the project. The drafting of this charter will naturally highlight all points of attention and will be a valuable support for developing all the management deliverables.

This document also has the advantage of summarizing the project and will make it possible to request validation from the project sponsor and / or the executive. This validation is also a mandatory step in the PRINCE2®. The project brief is one of the results of the "Starting Up a Project" process in the pre-project phase.

It is important to write this charter thinking of its use throughout the project. For an example :

• This will be a project presentation document for all team members, taking care to remove restricted points (such as costs). This will save a lot of time when a new speaker arrives on the project.
• The first chapters will be included in the project plan.
• The risks identified will be presented at the first risk review.

What is in the project charter ?

• An overview of the project with the name of the sponsor, the project manager, the estimated start and end dates, the duration, the estimated costs and the status of the charter.
• A presentation of the context, the business justification of the project, and the expected benefits.
• The goal of this project with sustainable elements
• The description, how will we do the project: milestones, milestones, main deliverables
• Main risks, constraints, and assumptions
• The planned organization (at this stage we list only important roles and team names, services)

Gouti proposes a page dedicated to the project charter. It is exportable in pdf so that you can easily diffuse it.