Project Charter

A Project Charter is a formal document that authorizes the project team to execute project activities and provides the project manager with the ability to apply organizational resources to project activities. 

Developing a project charter involves assessing the project feasibility basis the given constraints and planning the project at a high level. We do not create a detailed project plan while developing the project charter as it is generally done after official sign-off from the project sponsor. An official sign-off allows allocation of money and resources and thus supplements the development of detailed project plan. During project initiation, you define first of all the goal and high-level statements about scope, risks, assumptions, constraints, and requirements with a view of checking the feasibility of the project by meeting the important stakeholders.

It documents the high-level information on the project and on the product, service, or result the project is intended to satisfy, such as:

• Project purpose;
• Measurable project objectives and related success criteria;
• High-level requirements;
• High-level project description, boundaries, and key deliverables;
• Overall project risk;
• Summary milestone schedule;
• Preapproved financial resources;
• Key stakeholder list;
• Project approval requirements (i.e., what constitutes project success, who decides the project is successful, and who signs off on the project);
• Project exit criteria (i.e., what are the conditions to be met in order to close or to cancel the project or phase);
• Assigned project manager, responsibility, and authority level; and
• Name and authority of the sponsor or other person(s) authorizing the project charter.

At a high level, the project charter ensures a common understanding by the stakeholders of the key deliverables,
milestones, and the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved in the project.