Hoping for a bit of an explanation on how it is that one would use "Develop Project Charter" process at predefined points in the project life cycle? I think I need a better understanding of what is meant by project life cycle, actually.
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Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
You develop the project charter during or before the project initiation stage. It is one of the most important documents for starting a project and it’s more or less of a contract between the project team and the organisation’s stakeholders. Saving Changes...
Products and projects each have a lifecycle. With a product, that includes concept generation, selecting an approach, design, build, delivery, support, all the way through retirement of the product.
A project has a defined start and end point in the product lifecycle. It could be developing a new product cradle-to-grave, or it could be one smaller piece of a much longer product lifecycle, like a product improvement. The *project* lifecycle would include defining the specific problem, determining a solution approach, developing the solution, showing that the solution meets the goals, delivering the solution, up through dissolving the project team.
The term charter, literally means a paper document that defines some sort of purpose, rights, and authorities. In PM terms, it is the formal authorization to go spend money to develop some kind of product or service.
The charter defines the start and endpoints of the project such as concept through delivery, or prove this is even feasible, as well who are the major parties involved, major requirements, timeline for completion, deliverables, etc. It is a high level document that defines the general parameters of a project, and it rarely if ever changes.
When using the terms "develop project charter" that refers to defining the major objectives, and the rules or constraints by which that much be accomplished. Saving Changes...
A project lifecycle is all the stages of the project's existence from its initial authorization till its final closeout.
While a small project would likely have a charter which was written and authorized at the beginning, on a much larger project, it is possible that the charter is revisited and elaborated at the start of each significant phase. In such cases, the Develop Project Charter process would be executed more than once. Mind you, this happens fairly rarely in practice, but it does show that the PMBOK framework processes are all iterative in nature.
The project's life cycle may have various phases, each one with its process groups, so, a project charter can be developed at the beginning of each phase. Saving Changes...
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