A project charter is a document that highlights the project scope, objectives as well as the stakeholders involved, and their responsibilities in the project. In simpler terms, a project charter would generally be a short explanation of the main elements of the project before the project officially kicks off. By having a project charter before the project kick-off, you can get approval or course correction if necessary. A project charter is a crucial document for the project as it provides the project with a direction and sense of purpose from the start to the end of the project. 

The project charter would typically document the following elements:

• Reasons for the project

• Objectives and constraints of the project

• The main stakeholders and resources

• Project timeline

• Risks identified

• Benefits of the project

• General overview of the budget

1.  Discuss With Stakeholders & Team

When developing the project charter, you as the project manager have to first gather all the necessary information regarding the project. This can be done by discussing with all parties who would be involved once the project is approved such as the key team members, sponsors, and clients. For instance in ViTrox, during the development of the project charter, the project manager would work with the Project Management Office (PMO) as well as the R&D team members to establish the project timeline and areas to work on. 

2.  Take & Organize Notes

During these discussions between stakeholders, take notes on essential information that is required for the project charter. In these discussions, it is always important to anchor the discussion to the primary objectives, then determine and record the subsequent details. By focusing and recording down only the primary objectives, your project charter can be as clear to the point as possible and not too long. 

3.  Include Specific Information

Following on from the previous step, now that you have all the necessary information written down in note form, the next step would be to write these points into a clear and specific format. When writing your project charter, be sure that the charter can provide clear, specific information on these questions for the reader to understand each element. For example, by using the SMART principle when writing the project goals, the project stakeholders would have a clear idea of what this project is aiming to achieve. Similarly, other elements of your charter should also be short yet detailed, whether it’s the summary of risks, milestones, etc. In other words, ensure that the reader gets all the information they need to consider to approve the project.

4.  Review With Team Representatives

Upon the completion of the project charter, you should review your written project charter with key members of the team to ensure that the information provided is clear and sufficient before handing it to the project sponsor for approval. By having a review session with key members, the project charter can be further improved and any unclear words or elements can be rephrased to make it easier to be understood. For example in ViTrox, the project manager would review the project charter with the Project Management Office (PMO) team before submitting it for their Business Unit Head’s approval.

If you happen to be preparing your project charter, here are a few other helpful tips to keep in mind as you work through the above steps. 

1. Rely On Insights From Your Team

Sometimes as a project manager you may feel that you are required to develop the project charter yourself as you are the one responsible for it. In fact you should bring together your team members and work together on it as by having input and insights from various sources, you would be able to develop a far more accurate project charter. 

2. Keep It Short & Straightforward

When you are writing your project charter, you may be inclined to cram as much information as possible in order to have your project charter be as detailed as possible. This however is not the right approach for a project charter as a project charter should serve as a high-level overview of your project and not a breakdown that covers every detail of the project. The tip when writing a charter would be to keep it short and concise by having only one to two sentences for each section. Additionally, you could also use charts and bullet lists to help present the information in an organized and digestible way.

3. Write It In Basic, Easy-To-Understand Language

When writing the project charter, you may be tempted to use fancy words and complicated terminology to make it sound more impressive. However, in actuality these complex terminology and fancy words may cause confusion especially when it comes to technical terms which not everyone is familiar with. The key to a good project charter is to keep the language simple and clear. This ensures that there is no ambiguity and room for interpretation, which is especially important in project management where good, clear communication is paramount

4. Create A Template

Though each project may be unique in nature, its key elements and components would remain the same. As such, you should prepare a project charter template. This template can then be used for subsequent projects and can help to ensure that each of the key elements are addressed and communicated with the stakeholders. There is no fixed format for a project charter and therefore you can use any existing layout on the internet or build one that suits you. After developing the project charter template, the only thing left to do is to ensure that the format and layout is standardized throughout the organization.

Here, we have a sample of ViTrox’s Project Charter template for your reference.