Unchartered Territories

Andrea Brockmeier is the Director of Project Management at Watermark Learning. She has 20+ years of experience in project management practice and training.

  Stakeholder Management   ProjectsAtWork  

Small projects may not seem worth the effort of writing a charter and getting approval to do the work, but there are caveats in working on such unsanctioned efforts. Let’s explores the reasons why all projects should be considered charter-worthy, and the risks of working on unchartered projects.

An unchartered project is an oxymoron to most project managers. Kind of like the unsponsored project.  No sponsor, no project; no charter, no project.

But take a look at the mountain of stuff on your desk. How many unchartered projects are in the heap?  After all, it’s not like there’s a magic threshold for budget, time or resources for something to be a project.  If it’s got a beginning and an end — i.e., it’s temporary, and it’s creating something new or unique — it’s a project and it should be chartered. Look again. How many do you have?

Why wouldn’t you charter everything that fits the definition of a project? A number of reasons may be given for not getting charters for small projects, including:

• The time spent writing, submitting and keeping track of a charter is better spent just doing the project.
• No one really needs to know about this project since it only affects “us.” It’s not worth raising a bunch of flags.
• It is a hassle …

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