Before starting to work on a project, you need to plan everything through, discuss your goals and needs with stakeholders, and write many supportive documents. A detailed project plan, an accurate work schedule, and a realistic budget are merely some of them. Yet another must-have document on the list – and one of the least talked about – is a project charter.
Here, you can find a simple and free project charter template – don’t hesitate to download and use it to write a compelling charter for any new endeavor of yours.
What Is a Project Charter?
Many internet sources breed confusion about what a project charter is by defining it as merely a high-level description of project requirements, objectives, and stakeholders. However, a project charter is much more than that:
It is a document that authorizes the very existence of a project and gives managers official permission to utilize organizational resources in order to deliver it.
It means that a charter must be approved by your company’s top management or any other project sponsor. But it doesn’t always have to take the form of a formal document. A project charter can be written as a short memo or an e-mail. The key here is to confirm that a sponsor knows what a project is about, endorses a manager’s leadership over that project, and agrees to invest certain business resources into work.
Project Charter Template Components
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Project goals and deliverables.
What does your project aim to achieve? What overall impact will it have? And which specific and measurable performance results do you plan to see throughout the course of work?
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Project requirements.
Which major tasks do you have to complete? Which essential processes do you need to establish? And which resources do you necessitate in order to deliver the project successfully?
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Project schedule.
What are the expected start and end dates? And what are the primary project milestones to pass on the way?
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Project budget.
Will the project be affordable for your business? How many costs will it incur overall?
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Strategic context.
How will the project contribute to your business strategy, and why is it important?
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Economic analysis.
What will the return on investment be?
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Key stakeholders.
Who will be responsible for project realization? Which roles will they play in project management?
How to Write a Project Charter?
Creating a project charter for your project is simple – just download our free template and fill the required info in. But remember that a charter should outline only key information about a project in several concise statements. It shouldn’t be long at all. However, it can include references to some more comprehensive documents, such as a project timeline or an economic analysis report.
Also, note that a charter is usually created at the very beginning of a project. Thus, no one in your company will likely have a clear and in-depth understanding of how many resources you need and what will be done to complete work successfully. So, when writing this document, your goal is to develop just a rough idea of project requirements, needs, and constraints by using available (and often limited) knowledge.
Project Charter Benefits
- Higher clarity regarding project goals and requirements.
- An insight into project timelines and budget.
- Better alignment between project objectives and strategic business goals.
- Superior respect for the established subordination and a guarantee that the assigned project managers won’t exceed their responsibilities.
Drive Your Projects to Success with actiTIME
Just like planning and budgeting, progress tracking requires some adequate tools in order to be performed effectively. Thus, once your project charter is approved and the actual work has begun, make sure to implement a robust piece of software to monitor ongoing results and fulfill the set objectives on schedule.
actiTIME is an excellent option to consider. Use it to keep a record of employees’ working hours, monitor project costs, and analyze team productivity in depth. Sign up for a free online trial today and explore all the handy project management features this brilliant time tracker has in store for you.
