In my environment, all projects, well almost all, start with a business case. A large number of projects utilize the services of vendors. We have begun a healthy debate in the office regarding the project phases.
The Process is once the business case is approved, we then go through a procurement phase. This phase is completed once a supplier contract is in signed and in place. Now the point of debate is what comes next . Some say The Project Charter and Project Management Plan should be developed however some say that if you have a project charter there's no need for a pmp because it is included in the charter. ???
I really thought that these were two distinct documents and you should have a Project Charter and PMP per project.
what is your opinion especially regarding projects where customers rely on vendors to perform the project work.
Can there be two project charters ? One from the customer and one from the supplier or should their charters be integrated?
I used to work for a vendor and when i started a project for a customer, we had our own charter but the charter was specially made for the customer with customer needs.
groet,
johan Saving Changes...
Elyse NielsenSenior Project Manager| Ascension Health Information ServicesHaines City, Fl, United States
Hi Jikesh,
Great question! There is often ambiguity between where the project charter ends and the project management plan begins in corporations. My suggestion is to assure you have the key parts of each document covered with the customer. Please let me elaborate a bit more.
The project charter formally initiates the project giving the PM authority to act. It grants organizational approval for the efforts and clearly empowers the PM. Within the project management plan, there will be process defined on how communications will be managed along with scope, schedule, resources, procurement, and risk. What is important here is consistency of the processes along with assuring everyone is clear on the process.
My suggestion is to have a couple of process standards for how scope, procurement, risk, and so on will be managed. This way your organization can standardize, and the discussion will move away from the 2 documents to the outcomes the document bring. A clearly documented to be state and how the team will get there.
Regarding the question of vendor / customer's own documents. In my experience, you should only have one, after all it's the same project. If you compare your doc to the vendor's you'll be surprised how closely they match in content and it's an easy process to merge them, or agree to use one or the other.
One version of the truth will aid everyone. Saving Changes...
Andrew CotterellTransformation Manager| World Intellectual Property OrganisationGeneva, Switzerland
It's nice to see a Project Charter from an external supplier (because it shows some rigour on their part) but from your perspective it's for information only. If written correctly, the two charters should be markedly different and yours will, of course, need the input and approval of your stakeholders (with whom the supplier shouldn't have such a close relationship). Saving Changes...
Wayne MackRetired| RetiredSouth Riding, Va, United States
I would rephrase the question. Instead of asking what documents your organization should produce, ask what documents your organization consumes. If your organization refers back to the project charter as a quick overview of project scope, keep the documents separate. If your organization primarily refers to the PMP, then the charter can be the executive summary leading into the PMP.
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Your comments have assisted in clearing up the confusion .Thanks for the input.
Jikesh. Saving Changes...
Matt KirchmanDirector, Digital Technology Programs and Vendor Management| Oshkosh CorporationWisconsin, United States
I think that Elyse has the right idea. You do bring up a good point though, Jikesh. I have often hear concerns that a formal project management plan often restates information in the charter. In actuality, I think that this is a good thing, and I'll explain why in this post.
I consider the charter to be a high level description of the project, usually lacking a high degree of detail, and focusing on business benefits of the initiative. Typically, one to two pages is sufficient. The charter gives those with decision-making authority the ability to authorize the project manager's use of organizational resources--often for the purposes of further exploring and formally planning the project. Remember, depending on the scope and complexity of the project, a large number of resources may be utilized for an extended period of time.
The project management plan is going to be the output of this formal planning effort. It is the decision makers' next opportunity to make a go/no-go decision regarding this project.
The beauty of splitting things up this way is that it continues to facilitate communication with key stakeholders and decision makers, while ensuring that the project team plans a project solution that will meet the customer's needs. Should the team get off-track, or should the project become more than originally expected, then it provides a way for the organization to re-calibrate or cancel the project.
For smaller projects under a certain threshold (this is going to vary from org. to org.), it may make more sense to combine the documents into one. There is no sense creating more documentation than is necessary, nor is there any reason to become a slave to process. Saving Changes...
Before a project can actually start, the process was initiated via
1. A project proposal document ( Seems interesting lets investigate)
which then leads to
2. A feasibility study ( Can we do it? Should we do it?)
on completion of the study,
3. a business case is developed
( Yes, we must do it, we will benefit, give me money :-)
Now my question is should we not use the business case as the initiating document because if you look at the PMBok definition of a charter and what it entails, it seems to be very similar to the business case ??
maybe the charter in this scenario should be used to
1. Justify the project
2. Appoint a project manager
3. Indicate what the PM can and can't do
4. Clarify role of the decision makers and re-affirm who they are!
5. Clearly describe the scope of the project.
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Matt KirchmanDirector, Digital Technology Programs and Vendor Management| Oshkosh CorporationWisconsin, United States
I try not to get too caught up in semantics and labels when it comes to these things. Every organization has its own name and version of these things. I think the key takeaway here is that you want to create a discipline around how the organization's resources are used,ensuring that they are used in a worthwhile manner.
With that in mind, you wand to create a relatively low hurdle to make people think before they request resources to research and plan what will be required to implement a project. Depending on the scope and complexity, you want to create a higher hurdle to ensure that only worthwhile projects are granted the large quantity of resources (money, human, technology) required to produce the product or service that is desired.
If you want to call them a Business Case and a Charter, or a Charter and a Project Management Plan, or some other combination of labels, that is fine. As long as the decision makers get the information that they require to make sound choices, and everyone follows the processes in a somewhat consistent manner, then I think you'll be off to a good start. Saving Changes...
Interesting question and it raised some more interesting questions.
Do you run the business case as a project? Sometimes developing the business case can cost a considerable amount of time and money. Shouldn't it be also treated as a project with defined deliverable (business case) dates and resources, governance etc?
Please consider that to get to a final product you may need to go through a series of projects of varying sizes. So in all likelihood each should have a charter and PMP.
One other thing to consider is that the project management deliverables may look in the template the same or very similar but the difference is in time and knowledge, as time progresses you know more so that the next document e.g. PMP after Charter will contain more current and updated information.
It really is a pity we can't start the planning at the end of the project when we know everything! Saving Changes...
