Could anybody out of his practical experience describe a clear-cut difference between charter and BRD? I understand both of them, but I believe they overlap each other and kind of delivering the same contents (to some extent).
I have practically written charters but not BRD, but I am expecting writing it too, as I will be involved in ERP implementation in our organization. Moreover, I have done google search and understand the contents of BRD.
A charter is a high-level document which authorizes a project's existence. While there may be business objectives and high level requirements articulated within it, the detailed business requirements would be in a BRD.
A charter could be as brief as one page whereas a BRD could potentially be hundreds of pages.
From a traceability perspective, you'd like to have content in the BRD tracing back to content in the charter to ensure that the project's vision/purpose can be achieved.
Kiron Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Aziz, Kiron is right.
The key purpose of both documents is different:
- a charter give authority to the project manager to start a project
- the Business Requirements Document (BRD) describes the product of the project, it could be finalized before the charter in a pre-project (and then has to be governed by strict change management) or it can be developed during the project (what PMBoK Guide describes under scope management - requirements). Saving Changes...
Take a look at the "Develop Project Charter: Data Flow Diagram" in the PMBOK Guide (p. 76 in the version I'm looking at). PMI considers the project charter to be an input into multiple outputs, including requirements documentation. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Something critical: project manager is accountable for project requirements not for product requirements. Project requirements are defined from product requirements. If when you wrote BRD you are talking about business requirements then my recommendation is going to IEEE Std 828: Concept of Operations document. It could give you a good template for that. On the other side, the best piece of work to understand how much extension the documents could be and which is the trazability can be found here (see page 2): https://www.processimpact.com/articles/reqtraps.pdf Saving Changes...
Manuel PerezProject Management Coordinator| Las Vegas Valley Water DistrictNorth Las Vegas, Nv, United States
Prerequisite one for a BRD is the project charter, created during the define phase of a DMAIC project. The BRD provides the opportunity to review the project charter to ensure that the objective, goals, scope, project team, and approvers are accurately reflected. Saving Changes...
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