Project Management/Project Charter

Project Charter

Objectives and Skills

Objectives and skills for the project charter portion of Project+ certification include:

• Explain the requirements to complete a pre-project setup
  • Identify the project
  • Validate the project
  • Prepare a project charter
  • Obtain approval (signature) for project charter
• Explain the components of a project charter
  • Key project deliverables
  • High level milestones
  • High level cost estimates
  • Identify stakeholders
  • General project approach
  • Problem statement
  • High level assumptions
  • High level constraints
  • High level risks
  • Project objectives

Objectives and skills for the project charter portion of Project+ PK0-004 certification include:

• Classify project roles and responsibilities
  • Sponsor/champion
    • Approval authority
      • Funding
      • Project charter
      • Baseline
      • High-level requirements
    • Control
    • Marketing
    • Roadblocks
    • Business case/justification
  • Project manager
    • Manage team, communication, scope, risk, budget, and time
    • Manage quality assurance
    • Responsible for artifacts
  • Project coordinator
    • Support project manager
    • Cross-functional coordination
    • Documentation/ administrative support
    • Time/resource scheduling
    • Check for quality
  • Stakeholder
    • Vested interest
    • Provide input and requirements
    • Project steering
    • Expertise
  • Scheduler
    • Develop and maintain project schedule
    • Communicate timeline and changes
    • Reporting schedule performance
    • Solicit task status from resources
  • Project team
    • Contribute expertise to the project
    • Contribute deliverables according to schedule
    • Estimation of task duration
    • Estimation of costs and dependencies
  • Project Management Office (PMO)
    • Sets standards and practices for organization
    • Sets deliverables
    • Provides governance
    • Key performance indicators and parameters
    • Provides tools
    • Outlines consequences of non-performance
    • Standard documentation/templates
    • Coordinate resources between projects

Readings

1. Wikipedia: Project charter
2. Kent State: Identify and Develop a Project that Supports your Organization's Core Mission
3. Wikipedia: Project management#Initiating
4. Wikipedia: Stakeholder management
5. PM by PM Blog: What are Project Assumptions and PM by PM Blog: What are Project Constraints?
6. Zewo Guidelines for Projects and Programmes: What is a project objective?
7. University of Wisconsin: Stage 2: Initiate the Project
8. Project Manager: A Quick Guide
9. Six Sigma: Six Sigma Project Charter
10. Project Charter Example: Example with Template

Multimedia

1. YouTube: MS Project 2010 Allocating Resources
2. YouTube: What is a Project Charter
3. YouTube: Project Charter Fundamentals
4. YouTube: How To Create a Project Charter
5. YouTube: How to write a Project Charter
6. YouTube: Resource histogram explained for project management
7. YouTube: Resource Management Example

Activities

1. Review Wikipedia: Project Management#Initiating and Wikipedia: Stakeholder analysis and wikiHow: Make Your Project Charter.
   • Identify the project.
     • Know the Project Vision. The first measure taken when determining a Project Charter is to identify the project vision. The vision encapsulates the purpose of the project and is the fixed end goal for the project team.
     • Identify your objectives. Then supported on the vision, list three to five targets to be reached by the project. Every aim should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Real and Time-bound (SMART).
   • Create a team if necessary for the project.
   • Using a stakeholder mapping method, identify the primary stakeholders.
2. Select a Project Charter template from one of the following sites:
   • Project Charter Full Template
   • Project Charter Template
   • Project Charter Template in PPT and Word
   • CDC Project Charter Template
   • Project Charter Single Page
3. Add your project information to your selected template to create your project charter.
   • Although the format of project charters can vary tremendously, they should include at least the following basic information:
     • The project’s title and date of authorization
     • The project manager’s name and contact information
     • A summary schedule, including the planned start and finish dates; if a summary milestone schedule is available, it should also be included or referenced
     • A summary of the project’s budget or reference to budgetary documents, an estimate of the approximate cost of the project in money and time.
     • A brief description of the project's high level objectives, including the business need or other justification for authorizing the project
     • Project success criteria, including project approval requirements and who signs off on the project
     • A summary of the planned approach for managing the project, which should describe stakeholder needs and expectations, important assumptions, and constraints, and should refer to related documents, such as a communications management plan, as available
     • A roles and responsibilities matrix
     • A sign-off section for signatures of key project stakeholders
     • A comments section in which stakeholders can provide important comments related to the project

Lesson Summary

• The initiating processes determine the nature and scope of the project.
• Although ideas for projects usually abound in non-profit organizations, proposal writers can try to generate fresh ideas by reading newspapers, journals or newsletters related to your organization's mission and talking to colleagues about what topics seem to be getting the most attention in your field. Try to find a unique approach to solving a problem or combination of problems.
• Most projects fail due to poor definition. This is the leading cause of scope creep, which leads to unavailable resources and more time and budget necessary to completely satisfy scope. Since the plan reflects the work, resources, budget, and time necessary to satisfy the scope it is easy to see the critical importance of understanding the project definition and description. It is also necessary to ensure agreement from all stakeholders before planning. Let stakeholders review the draft of the project definition document, and get their sign-off, before moving to the planning phase of the project.
• The project charter is usually a short document that refers to more detailed documents such as a new offering request or a request for proposal.
• The project charter is formally accepted and approved by the project sponsor and other designated stakeholders. Formal approval acknowledges the completion, review and acceptance of all the deliverables produced during the Initiate Stage. Signatures on the project charter document mark final approval of the charter, which is the go-forward agreement.
• Project Charter is a statement of the scope, objectives, and participants in a project. It provides a preliminary delineation of roles and responsibilities, outlines the project objectives, identifies the main stakeholders, and defines the authority of the project manager. It serves as a reference of authority for the future of the project.
• Project Management Office (PMO) is a department within a business, agency, or enterprise that defines and maintains standards for project management within the organization. The PMO strives to standardize and introduce economies of repetition in the execution of projects.
• A key deliverable is an item - either tangible or intangible - produced as a part of a project.
• Milestones are deliverables or major events to be achieved on a specified date. They can be viewed as ”how are we doing” thresholds indicating whether a project is on track to finish as expected.
• A high-level budget is a summary of the estimated costs to complete the high-level project milestones. Generally, there are three types of costs that can be included in a high-level budget: Labor costs, Material costs, Non-labor costs.
• Stakeholder analysis is the process of identifying the individuals or groups that are likely to affect or be affected by a proposed action, and sorting them according to their impact on the action and the impact the action will have on them.
• The objective of the project management approach is to define the project management methodologies that will be used on the project. The approach should be based on the project management framework but should also include reference to and iterative development, or prototyping methodologies that will be utilized.
• A problem statement is a clear description of the issue(s), it includes a vision, issue statement, and method used to solve the problem. A problem statement expresses the words that will be used to keep the effort focused and it should represent a solveable problem.
• Project Assumptions are events or circumstances that are expected to occur during the project life-cycle.
• Project Constraints are restrictions imposed by Stakeholders or Environment that limits Project Team’s options.
• During the early phases of project planning, assessments must be made as to whether the project can be completed successfully. Usually these are GO/ NO GO decisions. While very little detail may be known at this point, the high-level risks should attempt to be identified and assessed. These steps include: identifying risks at the highest level of the work tasks; analyzing the associated costs and benefits of the project to determine the relative risks of potential gains; and developing high-level mitigation strategies to reduce the impact of potential events.
• The project objective describes the project’s outcomes: intended and direct, short- and medium-term effects on the target group. The project objective must lie within the scope of the project, and one must be able to directly attribute the effects to the project.

Key Terms

• business case - Used to justify the investment. Includes the project objective, high-level requirements, and time and cost goals.
• constraint - A limitation or restriction.
• contract - An agreement between two or more parties.
• cost - The value of money that is correlated to an item or service.
• deliverable - A product or service produced or provided as part of a project.
• enterprise environmental factors - Includes relevant government or industry standards, the organization’s infrastructure, and marketplace conditions.
• initiating - Processes defining and authorizing a project and/or project phase.
• milestones - Specific points along a project timeline.
• objectives - Goals.
• organizational process assets - include formal and informal plans, policies, procedures, guidelines, information systems, financial systems, management systems, lessons learned, and historical information that can influence a project’s success.
• problems - Undesirable situations that prevent an organization from achieving its goals.
• project - A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.
• project charter - A document that formally recognizes the existence of a project and provides direction on the project’s objectives and management.
• project manager - A professional in the field of project management.
• risk - Potentially gaining or losing of something
• schedule - A plan for carrying out a process or procedure, giving lists of intended events and times.
• scope - All the work involved in creating the products of the project and the processes used to create them.
• stakeholders - People involved in or affected by project activities.
• stakeholder analysis - A technique for analyzing information to determine which stakeholders’ interests to focus on and how to increase stakeholder support throughout the project.
• statement of work - a document that describes the products or services to be created by the project team.
• task - An activity that needs to be accomplished within a period of time.
• template - A preset format for a document or file, used so that the format does not have to be recreated each time it is used.

Review Questions

1. The ______ processes determine the nature and scope of the project

   Initiating
2. Although ideas for _____ usually abound in non-profit organizations, proposal writers can try to generate fresh ideas by reading newspapers, journals or newsletters related to your organization's mission and talking to colleagues about what topics seem to be getting the most attention in your field. [4]

   Projects
3. Most projects fail due to poor definition. This is the leading cause of scope _____, which leads to unavailable resources and more time and budget necessary to completely satisfy scope.

   Creep
4. The project _____ is usually a short document that refers to more detailed documents such as a new offering request or a request for proposal.

   Charter
5. The project charter is formally accepted and approved by the project _____ and other designated stakeholders.

   Sponsor
6. Project Charter is a statement of the _____, objectives, and participants in a project.

   Scope
7. A key _____ is an item - either tangible or intangible - produced as a part of a project.

   Deliverable
8. _____ are deliverables or major events to be achieved on a specified date. Milestones can be viewed as ”how are we doing” thresholds indicating whether a project is on track to finish as expected.

   Milestones
9. A high-level budget is a summary of the estimated costs to complete the high-level project milestones. Generally, there are three types of costs that can be included in a high-level budget: _____ costs, _____ costs, Non-labor costs. [10]

   Labor, Material
10. _____ analysis is the process of identifying the individuals or groups that are likely to affect or be affected by a proposed action, and sorting them according to their impact on the action and the impact the action will have on them.[11]

    Stakeholder
11. The objective of the project management approach is to define the project management _____ that will be used on the project.

    Methodologies
12. A problem statement expresses the words that will be used to keep the effort focused and it should represent a _____ problem.

    Solvable
13. Project _____ are events or circumstances that are expected to occur during the project life-cycle.

    Assumptions
14. Project _____ are restrictions imposed by Stakeholders or Environment that limits Project Team’s options.

    Constraints
15. During the early phases of project _____, assessments must be made as to whether the project can be completed successfully.

    Planning
16. The project objective must lie within the _____ of the project, and one must be able to directly attribute the effects to the project.

    Scope

Assessments

1. Take Go Skills: Project Charter Quiz
2. Review Quizlet: Project Charter
3. Take Quizlet: Project Charter
4. Review Quizlet: Process Groups and Project Charter

References

Type classification: this is a lesson resource.