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MUST HAVE INFORMATION in a Project Charter

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Eduard Hernandez
Community Champion
Product Operations Program Manager Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain
We all have seen several templates of Project Charters and can easily download and edit them. My question is: What are the strictly necessary items that a Project charter must contain? (leaving aside bureaucracy information such as Project number, code, date, sponsor signature, etc.).

This is my suggested list. Your comments and inputs are greatly appreciated:

a. Project purpose (Core reasons for undertaking the project)

b. Project goals and related success criteria (measurable objectives of the project and criteria that must be met in order to consider the project successful)

c. High level description (general description of the project)

d. High level requirements (stakeholder needs to be covered)

e. Requirements & Approvals (specific requirements that need to be covered in order for the project deliverables to be accepted and the project approved + signatures)

f. High level risks (generic risks identified at the beginning of the project)

g. Summary budget

h. Summary milestones Schedule
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AKSHAY JAIN Planning Group Leader| YOKOGAWA, Bahrain Gwalior, Mp, India
I think main purpose of project charter is to convey key objective of the project. From beginning it is set in minds of each project stakeholder, what is being trying to achieve out of project under given constraints with clarity by this summary document and it changes whole scenario , attitude and thinking pattern of people. So I believe objective of project is must have information in project charter with constraint and this document must be as short as possible.
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Rami Kaibni
Community Champion
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten Associates New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
I believe you need to mention as well how the purpose of this project ties into the company overall strategic plans and goals.
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Mayte Mata Sivera PMO Leader | Speaker | Author Ut, United States
Few years ago I've seen a project charter in IT that includes Hight Level Stakeholders as (SterCo, team leads, keys users, end users, clients, providers, and 3rd parties)

Rita's Book also recommend to include stakeholders information.

Maybe depending on your project you can include it, but as said, I've only seen once. After I've worked with a specific document for KA stakeholders management during initiating process group.
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Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
This is what I use from years:
Revision Control
Review/Approval History
1. Purpose 5
2. Approvals 6
3. Scope 7
3.1 What is in the scope? 7
3.2 What is not in the scope? 7
4. Key assumptions and constraints 8
4.1 What are the key assumptions? 8
4.2 What are the key constraints? 8
4.3 What are the identified project dependencies? 8
4.4 What are projects and business activities depending on this project? 9
5. Timelines 10
5.1 Gantt Chart representing all PLM phases 10
5.2 Estimated dates for stage gate reviews and key milestones 10
5.3 Project critical path 10
6. Resource requirements 11
6.1 Level of business involvement required during each phase 11
6.2 Level of Application/IT involvement required during each phase 11
6.3 Internal vs. external resource involvement 11
6.4 Key skills/knowledge required to support the project 12
7. Risk Management 13
7.1 List high impact and high probability risks 13
7.2 Analyze high probability and high impact risks 13
7.3 Describe high-level approach to monitor and/or manage those risks 14
8. Business Case Summary 15
8.1 Key drivers and alternatives 15
8.2 Project success criteria 16
8.3 Outcome relationship model 17
9. Project Governance 18
9.1 Steering committee structure and member names 18
9.2 Approval and escalation process, stage gate review signatories 18
9.3 Roles and Responsibilities (Job-Roles Alignment) 18
9.4 Steering committee meetings approach 18
10. Project Organization Chart 19
11. Stakeholders Management 20
1.1 Identify the stakeholders 20
11.2 Prioritize the stakeholders 20
11.3 Understand key stakeholders 20
12. Architecture and Operations 21
12.1 High level target architecture 21
12.2 High level impact on architecture 21
12.3 Impact on Application/Technical architecture 21
13. Financials 22
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2 replies by Eduard Hernandez and Mayte Mata Sivera
Sep 27, 2016 11:48 AM
Mayte Mata Sivera
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@Sergio, I would like to know regarding point 11. Stakeholders, it means that you are including here the stakeholders identification or is a hight level identification?

Bay the way, this is a full example, thank you for sharing!
Sep 28, 2016 5:19 AM
Eduard Hernandez
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Thank you for your answer, Sergio, greatly appreciated it.

I find the proposed charter to be very comprehensive (easily over 20 pages). I am a bit unsure whether all the items in your list are MUST HAVEs or they may qualify in other project management documentation (i.e. Project Scope Statement; Stakeholder management plan; etc.). Just an opinion!
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Mayte Mata Sivera PMO Leader | Speaker | Author Ut, United States
Sep 26, 2016 2:41 PM
Replying to Sergio Luis Conte
...
This is what I use from years:
Revision Control
Review/Approval History
1. Purpose 5
2. Approvals 6
3. Scope 7
3.1 What is in the scope? 7
3.2 What is not in the scope? 7
4. Key assumptions and constraints 8
4.1 What are the key assumptions? 8
4.2 What are the key constraints? 8
4.3 What are the identified project dependencies? 8
4.4 What are projects and business activities depending on this project? 9
5. Timelines 10
5.1 Gantt Chart representing all PLM phases 10
5.2 Estimated dates for stage gate reviews and key milestones 10
5.3 Project critical path 10
6. Resource requirements 11
6.1 Level of business involvement required during each phase 11
6.2 Level of Application/IT involvement required during each phase 11
6.3 Internal vs. external resource involvement 11
6.4 Key skills/knowledge required to support the project 12
7. Risk Management 13
7.1 List high impact and high probability risks 13
7.2 Analyze high probability and high impact risks 13
7.3 Describe high-level approach to monitor and/or manage those risks 14
8. Business Case Summary 15
8.1 Key drivers and alternatives 15
8.2 Project success criteria 16
8.3 Outcome relationship model 17
9. Project Governance 18
9.1 Steering committee structure and member names 18
9.2 Approval and escalation process, stage gate review signatories 18
9.3 Roles and Responsibilities (Job-Roles Alignment) 18
9.4 Steering committee meetings approach 18
10. Project Organization Chart 19
11. Stakeholders Management 20
1.1 Identify the stakeholders 20
11.2 Prioritize the stakeholders 20
11.3 Understand key stakeholders 20
12. Architecture and Operations 21
12.1 High level target architecture 21
12.2 High level impact on architecture 21
12.3 Impact on Application/Technical architecture 21
13. Financials 22
@Sergio, I would like to know regarding point 11. Stakeholders, it means that you are including here the stakeholders identification or is a hight level identification?

Bay the way, this is a full example, thank you for sharing!
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2 replies by Rami Kaibni and Sergio Luis Conte
Sep 27, 2016 1:23 PM
Rami Kaibni
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It should be high level identification of Stakeholders.
Sep 27, 2016 8:48 PM
Sergio Luis Conte
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It is all the information related to your stakeholder management activity: identification-clasification (we use the influence-impact matrix)-analysis result (stakeholder analysis document). Here I have to mention that to publish it will depends on your organizational culture. Mainly if you use other type of matrix where interest is inside the dimension. And as Rami stated above, at this level, you have high level stakeholders most of the time.
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Stéphane Parent Self Employed / Semi-retired| Leader Maker Prince Edward Island, Canada
One of the most important things I want to see is the scope boundaries: what is in scope and what is out of scope. (They are in Sergio's list.)
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Rami Kaibni
Community Champion
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten Associates New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Sep 27, 2016 11:48 AM
Replying to Mayte Mata Sivera
...
@Sergio, I would like to know regarding point 11. Stakeholders, it means that you are including here the stakeholders identification or is a hight level identification?

Bay the way, this is a full example, thank you for sharing!
It should be high level identification of Stakeholders.
avatar
Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
Sep 27, 2016 11:48 AM
Replying to Mayte Mata Sivera
...
@Sergio, I would like to know regarding point 11. Stakeholders, it means that you are including here the stakeholders identification or is a hight level identification?

Bay the way, this is a full example, thank you for sharing!
It is all the information related to your stakeholder management activity: identification-clasification (we use the influence-impact matrix)-analysis result (stakeholder analysis document). Here I have to mention that to publish it will depends on your organizational culture. Mainly if you use other type of matrix where interest is inside the dimension. And as Rami stated above, at this level, you have high level stakeholders most of the time.
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Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
Justo to add something. In our governance process two documents are a must: business case and project charter. For us, the project charter is the contract with our clients and it represent the commitement between both.
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Ganesh Srinivasan Ganesh PMO (PMP, PMI-SP, ITIL-F)| MNC Bank Chennai, India
Dear Eduard Thanks for bringing up this topic, Its very helpful :)

Dear Sergio , Full list example is simply great, very very helpful and valaubale inputs.

Currently i'm doing KM project, i could see most of them i have it..

Could you please eloborate on Stakeholder managment ? as it will be helpful for many members like me.

Thank you.
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1 reply by Sergio Luis Conte
Sep 28, 2016 6:45 AM
Sergio Luis Conte
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Is the same that you can find inside the pmbok Project stakeholder Management knowledge área. I wrote an article about a practical method to do that and is posted,un my blog here in projectmanagement.com
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