Project Management

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Turnaround and expectations regarding project documentation

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Zachary Zaloumis Charleston, South Carolina, United States

What are the expectations you have had around charters, project schedules, and other essential documentation? Do you have documents that if they are not done in a certain amount of time that you will escalate to your supervisor with explanations or reasons for why the document wasn't done?



Another question I have is, around document timeline expectations. Does your workplace have a rigor around how long it takes to do documents. Say your company says you have five weeks to get a charter done? What are some of your workplace document turnaround time expectations and what happens if you miss those turnaround time expectations?
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Keith Novak Tukwila, Wa, United States

It is highly dependent on the organization, and in a large part the management review cadence. For an emergent problem that needs a quick turnaround, the problem is probably brought up in one senior leadership review, and a charter is developed for the next review but that could be 1-4 weeks. A larger project might be 3 months of investigation and planning first.

Some types of documents are more or less process defined. A charter could be filling out a quick form. At some cost threshold, greater process controls may be required and certainly whether they go outside the company such as to regulators.

The first question in what happens if you miss your date is how important is that date, and the second is "Why?". Then you can assess the importance and decide on what happens next.
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Eduard Hernandez
Community Champion
Product Operations Program Manager Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain
In project management, it's crucial to differentiate between documents authored by the Project Manager and those authored by team members.

The Project Charter is typically authored by the PM with input from relevant individuals and departments. This can create a challenging situation, as a formal project may not yet be launched, requiring resources to gather enough input to produce the document. In a matrix environment, line managers should be aware of the need to allocate time for selected team members to contribute for a specific number of hours or days.

For documentation produced by the team during project execution (e.g., C&Q reports, protocols, etc.), it is essential to assign each document to a designated owner. Tools like a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) matrix or a Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM can be helpful for this purpose. If a document is delayed, it's important to understand the reasons for the delay and assess its impact on the overall project timeline. If the delay is critical and the document owner is not cooperating in finding a resolution, it is appropriate to escalate the issue to the line manager.
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Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
Beyond valuable comments above my recommendation is putting all this inside the project plan and schedule to give visibility about all related to create documentation.

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