What Is a Project Charter? Guide, Examples and Templates in 2024
New project managers often ask, “What is a project charter?” It’s important to know the answer as it’s the starting point for your project. In this article, we’ll answer this question and show you how to make a solid project charter.
Written by Dan Ginn (Writer, Script Editor)
Reviewed by Brett Day (Writer, Editor)
Facts checked by Igor Kurtz (Fact-checking editor)
Last Updated: 2024-07-25T21:32:32+00:00
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While the best project management software can help with a project’s day-to-day management, a project charter serves as the starting point of its success. If you’re not sure what project charters are and what role they play in a project timeline, don’t worry — we’ll explain it all in our “what is a project charter” guide.
Beyond defining what a project charter is, we’ll also show you the best practices to create and implement one to give your project the best chance of success. We’ll also explain all the elements that go into a project charter document and outline how it can help you achieve your goals.
Definition: What Is a Project Charter?
A project charter is a formal document that outlines key details about an upcoming project. Project managers tend to assemble project charters as they outline core project objectives and list key project stakeholders.
monday.com offer project charter templates.
That’s not all the document includes. Below, we’ll explain what role the charter plays in project management and why it’s critical to get it right.
What Is a Project Charter in Project Management?
To ensure that the project’s goals are reached, a project manager must consider several factors. Aside from daily tasks, it’s important to manage project scope and spending to prevent scope creep from becoming an issue and to clarify who the key points of contact are within the project.
Simply put, a project charter is an overview that explains why a project is taking place and what its key deliverables are — it serves as an initial guide for everyone involved. Many confuse this with a project plan, but it’s not the same. We’ll outline their differences in the next section.
Project Charter vs Project Plan
Although a project charter may fall under the project planning tree, it differs from a project planning document. A project plan goes into more detail about how you will complete a project. It includes core daily tasks and strategies on how you can complete the necessary work to meet your goals.
The project plan delves into specifics like project milestones and crucial deadlines. You’ll also find more details about the project schedule and learn how you’ll stick to the timeline in a project plan. In other words, a project charter is an overview of what you need to do and why, while a project plan outlines how you’re going to do it.
Purpose of a Project Charter: What Is It Used For?
There are many things to consider when taking on a new project — so much so that you may wonder if you can just skip making the project charter. As simple as they may seem, strong project charters give your team the best possible start and provide a greater chance of project success. Here’s why you need them.
- You need project charters to explain the purpose of a project and what to expect once it begins.
- Project charters help define a project’s scope. This means they set boundaries within your project to help keep teams on track.
- A project charter will outline project budgets.
- Project managers use a project charter to give a rough schedule for the project’s beginning and completion.
- When you create a project charter, it’s important to include all key stakeholders, including a project sponsor, if applicable. You can use this information to include relevant points of contact and their contact details.
Project Charter Elements
In this section, we’ll explore the specific elements of a project charter. All of these elements are essential and should be included in your charter.
Why Is a Project Charter Important?
Let’s imagine for a moment that you decide not to create a project charter. Instead, you ask your project team to dive headfirst into a project without giving them a reference point for why they’re doing the work. Below are some potential consequences of this approach, as well as reasons why using a project charter will help you achieve project success.
How to Create a Project Charter
If you’re a new project manager and have yet to create your first project charter, then below are some simple steps to create your own project charter. Even if you’re an experienced project manager, you can still use these steps to improve your project documentation.
1. Keep It Simple
Don’t overcomplicate your project charter. Remember, its purpose is to clearly outline your project’s objectives. Avoid jargon or language that may not be easily understood, and keep it concise. Too much copy will likely lead to people overlooking valuable information. Stick to the essentials when it comes to providing the project details.
2. Use a Template
If it’s your first time creating a charter, then you should find a robust template to guide you. It’s easy to locate a free project charter template online — you may even find one within the project management software that you use. Also, check with your company as they may already have an in-house project charter template that they prefer.
3. Go Digital
It’s always a good idea to keep project documents in a digital format as it’s easier to back them up and you reduce the risk of losing them. In our remote world, it also lets you easily share documents and involve key stakeholders that you liaise with remotely. You can use the best cloud storage services or project management software to create your documents.
4. Create Sections
Although a project charter should be brief, it must still contain plenty of information. Separate the key points into different headings so that people can easily find the details they need. For example, one heading could be project budget and another could be project sponsors. Organizing the document better enables the reader to digest the content within the charter.
5. Check It, Then Check It Again
Before sending the project charter to the relevant team members, make sure all the details are accurate. It’s also beneficial for project managers to ask someone else to review the document. This could be your senior or someone who works alongside you. Check the organizational structure of your business to see who to ask — a second pair of eyes always helps.
Project Charter Examples
To help you better understand its role, below are some real-world examples of how you can use a project charter. Although the examples may not pertain to your industry, their structure is transferable regardless of the sector.
Project Charter Template
If you’re struggling to find a project charter template, don’t worry. We’ve done some research, and there are plenty of options out there. Check the links below to find some templates that we approve of — we’re sure they’ll help you create the best project charter. They come in a range of formats, including a sample PDF and Excel file.
Final Thoughts
By now, we trust that you have all the knowledge you need to start implementing project charters into your workflow. Remember, if you’re a new project manager, take advantage of the above templates and aim to make your own as your experience grows. You can also check out our monday.com review and ClickUp review to see what these platforms offer beyond templates.
Did you find this guide useful? What other parts of project management would you like us to explain? What’s your favorite tool for project documentation? Let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading.
FAQ: Project Charter Definition
A project charter is a formal document that outlines the purpose of a project, the people involved and its key objectives.
The elements of a project charter are the overview, scope, schedule, budget and stakeholders. Some charters also include potential risks; however, this depends on the project manager who is writing the charter for that project.
A project charter helps teams understand the motivation for a specific project, its core objectives and its key stakeholders.
A project plan offers more detail on how teams will approach and complete a project. It outlines strategies for completing tasks, and highlights milestones and deadlines. A project charter gives more of an overview of why a project is happening and what its objective is.