Project Charter: The Definitive Guide - Everything You Need to Know?

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 out the project because it is used throughout the project lifecycle and officially starts a project or a phase. It formally authorizes the existence of the project and provides a reference source for the future. The charter gives direction and a sense of purpose to the management from start to end.

The Project Charter must explain the business needs that led to the project being taken up. It will also capture high-level planning information (scope, assumptions, deliverables, etc.) about the project. The specifics of the project activities are developed later. This process is one of the first ones to be performed by the Project Sponsor, Project Director, or Project Manager during the initiation stage of the project. (The initiator may vary from project to project, based on knowledge of the business and other factors).

Key elements to be included up front in your Project Charter?

• Project Context - The author will describe how the project has come into being.
• Background - This is information on where the project has come from? For example: Is this a project relating to a new or existing contractual relationship? OR Is it part of a wider program of work?
• Business Need and Business Benefits - Here you should outline WHY the project is required and also the benefits of conducting the project?
• Project Outline of Purpose and Justification - The author will describe what the project is designed to achieve? This should only be one or two short sentences as the Project Charter will provide so much information that the reader should have no doubt as to the purpose. Having a one or two liner will help the PCG and others tell the story quickly when asked what the project is about.
• Project Objectives - Here is where the Objectives of the project are described and outline what the project needs to deliver in order to be successful.

Now that we have taken a look at the high-level key project information, what else is provided in this document? Let's take a closer look.

• The name of the project
• The project number if allocated already.
• The names of the Project Sponsor and Project Director.
• Any business needs objectives, i.e. Such as any engagement exercises that have been undertaken.
• The type of work environment being built, i.e. the specialty or custom-built facilities and their fitout specifics.
• Any design callouts, i.e. such as internal stairs to increase connectivity.
• Any health and wellness initiatives, i.e. such as a green wall.

The Project Charter will mention if there will be a Change Management program to support the building's new workplace principles and any project constraints such as budgets and lease critical expiry dates. Assumptions will also be provided that may or may not materialize, such as all new IT and some business units not moving.

High-Level Milestone Program and Membership Authorities

Though appointed in the Project Charter, a Project Manager can still be involved in the preparation of the Project Charter. The Sponsor or the project initiator usually creates the Charter along with the project management team. The Sponsor may lack the skills required to prepare a Project Charter and may need the help of a Project Manager to make a Charter.

The Project Charter will provide a breakdown by business groups, with department, executive general manager name, current work point allocations and occupation % proportions. The high-level milestones in this document are approximations only and require validation with stream leads and relevant vendors once the Project Team is engaged. Possibly the milestones that have already been completed will be the project initiation and stakeholder requirements gathering where employee engagement across the business, possibly a vertical slice plus managers have been undertaken. Workshops may include discovery, culture/brand, mind mapping, and co-creation exercises. The Pack that will communicate the Project Charter summary will contain:

• Leadership & Project Control Group support requirements.
• Dates and responsible owners to detail the deliverables.
• Indicative completion dates and,
• Owner responsible

This may be broken up into key milestones such as Project Initiation and the deliverables within:

• New Workplace Environment
• Workplace Principles
• High-Level Deliverables
• Concept/Design
• Detail of The New Workplace Principles and
• Block and Stack.

More Project Charter inclusions

So what else is included in the Project Charter? A Project Scope Statement, with Scope Description, Project Scope Exclusions, Project Deliverables. Assumptions and Constraints, and Milestones of the project. In the Scope Statement area of the Project Charter, you will describe the high-level requirements of the project and any special contractual requirements to be delivered, as well as explicitly stating the exclusions to the project. The milestones and timescales for the project will list the activities and dates that have been committed, and if the milestones and dates have been defined in any contract. High-level budget indication in the Project Charter will indicate the CAPEX Budget breakdown for:

• Internal resources
• Technology Internal Resources and Vendors
• Project Consultants
• Built environment including workplace, reception, internal stairs and any big-ticket items
• Any budget for custom built/specialist areas such as control rooms
• Staff relocations
• Contingency

What else is included in the Project Charter? Roles and Responsibilities of the key parties. There will be Roles and Responsibilities developed for each of the work streams identified in this pack. An understanding of how the project will be reported to the PCG will be included including an image of the dashboard to provide visual reference. This Project Status Reporting will include:

• Project updates from streams
• Upcoming deliverables from work streams
• Health and Safety performance
• Program Status
• Commercial status
• Top three risks and issues and,
• Pending approvals

This Project Charter will be presented in a Project Execution Pack and may be presented to the PCG once all work streams are onboarded and high-level deliverables for each program have been approved.

Let's look at what you have learned so far. The Project Charter is:

• Developed in the initiation stage of the project.
• It is created based on a business need, and the document must explain that need.
• The sponsor or the initiator must sign it.
• It names and authorizes the Project Manager.
• It should include high-level project requirements.
• It should include a high-level milestone view of the project schedule.
• It is a high-level document that does not include the project details. The specifics of project activities will be developed last.
• It includes the summary level preliminary project budget.

Project Charter – An Example

This lesson is to show you what a Project Charter could look like. The blue highlights are where the variables will be specific to your project. This provides inspiration for what your PCG will need to know as there are so many things to an accommodation project, from an organization, business, technology, people, and process perspective.

Section	Details
Project Overview
Project Name	[Project Name]
Project Number	[Project Number]
Project Address	[Street Address, City]
Project Owner/Sponsor	[Name]
Project Director	[Name]
Project Director’s Authority	Capacity to approve expenses within the approved project scope and budget, within [Business Name] directive. Any out-of-scope expenses above the approved project value or that have a program time impact are to be escalated in accordance with the project governance structure within this Project Execution Pack.
Product Description	Accommodation facilities to house and service [Business Name] business activities, employees, and contractors.
Business Needs/Objectives
Stakeholder Requirements Gathering	Activities currently underway and to be incorporated into the project’s concept design
Office Fitout	[####] of office fitout in an agile/flexible work-setting environment for [Business Name] employees
Speciality Spaces	[Name any speciality spaces]
Reception and Meeting Room Floor
Internal Building Features	Internal stairs, green-wall
Workplace Principles Change Management
Employee Relocation and Business Activity Migration	Relocate employees (assumed ### people) and migrate business activities to the new building
Project Constraints
Project Budget	$[####] + GST (excluding [Location] make-good and handback activities and exit works)
Staff Relocation Deadline	Relocate staff out of [Location] by no later than [Day], [Date]
Key Milestone Approvals and Lease Execution	Achieved in accordance with the ‘Key Internal Approval Gates’
Assumptions
Agile Work Setting Environment Will Be Provided
IT Network Requirements	Majority of [Business Name] IT network requirements will be housed internally or externally
Signed by Project Sponsor	([Business Location] Premise Project Sponsor) ____________________

 

In this article, have been introduced to the important Project Charter document and were introduced to some of the stakeholder groups that will lead and manage the accommodation project.

It is important that all stakeholder groups are respectful of how much is going on during this project time. The PCG may be still working on aspects of the property procurement such as Agreement for Lease, and the construction programme. They may be undertaking consultant engagement, or entering the detailed design phase of the project. 

The PWG themselves may be some of the same people reporting to the PCG on any of the things above and it is possible they are running signifcant programmes,  .. such as a fitout.

When starting out in your project seek to understand the program and commitments of the PCG so you can pitch your Project Plan, Charter Summary and status updates according to how they like to receive them and absorb them.