How many times is a project charter created in the project?
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
In PMBoK 4.1 this question is answered as 'once or at predefined points in the project'.
I personally have never seen a charter that was changed during a project. When the need for a change came up, it was handled thru change request. I see the project charter as a birth certificate. There might have been charters for phases, these are not project charters though.
I do not see a need for change unless there is a major change in objectives/deliverables. I believe that the Project Charter is a statement of objectives in a project. This statement also sets out detailed project goals, roles and responsibilities, identifies the main stakeholders, and the level of authority of a project manager. Saving Changes...
Anton OosthuizenSenior Business Analyst / Project Manager| Self EmployedPretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Agree. I have never seen a project charter being updated once the project has started. My own experience has always been that the charter is used as the go-ahead or authorization to start the project i.e assemble the project team. While it usually contains information that is bound to change over the course of a long complex project it is not changed as it remains as the initial baseline. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
I never, never started a project without a project charter. Other documents could be skipped but project charter must not. Why? Because is the contract and commitment between all the actors to go for the objective. Saving Changes...
I'd agree - I'm even opposed to updating it once it has been formally accepted as if there is a change material enough to require that, one might argue that you actually have a different business case and should wind down the original project and start up a new one.
It may/may not changed. this has to do with the type of change you are going to make. Saving Changes...
LORI WILSONRETIRED - Technical Project Manager| RETIRED - LifePoint HealthClarkston, Wa, United States
Hello Thomas: Once the charter is formally accepted it is done - no more revisions, and I agree with your experience that changes from that moment on are done via change requests. Saving Changes...
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
I’ve seen a charter updated when there is a core change but never experienced a creation of a whole new charter. When a new charter needs to be created it means the objective and goal of the original project became obsolete. Saving Changes...
The team I am part of has discussed this, recently. We treat the charter as a static document that is part of the gate to move from Initiation to Planning; consider it a baseline of what the sponsor thinks the project and its deliverables/outcomes will be. After that, a scope change log is used to track changes to the desired deliverables and outcomes.
There is an argument for NOT locking it down until the end of the Planning phase as, IMO, details hide in the processes and data that you don't look at closely during the Initiation phase. Locking the charter down at the end of Planning makes it more likely that the charter will more closely resemble the delivered product or service. But is that really the point of the charter? Or is the purpose of the charter to provide enough information about a project to be able to make a decision about whether or not its worth pursuing (assuming your business case is included in the charter, which is a whole other subject for discussion). Saving Changes...
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