What is the purpose of a project charter?

Answer 1

The project charter is a document that states the initial requirements to satisfy the stakeholders needs and expectations. It is the document that formally authorizes the project.

The project charter is the document that formally authorizes a project, which includes naming the project manager and determining the authority level of the project manager.

Any Project Charter, that is prepared by an experienced Project Manager would contain the following:

1. The project justification, which includes the purpose of the project and the business case for the project, which in turn may include return on investment.

2. A high-level project description that includes the business needs that the project addresses and the high-level product requirements.

3. High-level project requirements based on the needs of the customer, the sponsor, and other stakeholders.

4. Project objectives and success criteria, which are derived from the purpose section. This section explains exactly what will be done by this project and what exactly will be the outcome of this project. The most important point is that the objectives must be measurable.

5. High-level risks, which will be identified during the project planning. However, some high-level risks may be apparent during the time of developing the project charter.

6. Milestone schedule, some kind of high-level schedule.

7. A budget summary, A high-level summary of the project cost estimate with some kind of timeline.

8. Project approval and acceptance requirements , which include the name and responsibility of the person or committee that will approve and accept the project when it's finished.

9. An assigned project manager, a specified authority level for that project manager, and the influences that the stakeholders might have.

10. Project sponsor, the name and authority level of the project sponsor authorizing the project charter.

Apart from these, the charter might include other elements like the list of functional departments of the organization and their roles (Like the Technical Support Team that would be supporting the Network and Hardware that the project team will be working on). Also, other external assumptions and constraints are outlined in this document.