Technical Project Charter

I’m not sure whether a tech project in your organization differs from any other project as far a charter goes and I don’t have a document, but let me see if I can recall something we used when I was a member of a project office.

It consisted of several sections in a prettied up outline format something like this:

Purpose
- Identify a business problem/opportunity
- Identify a solution
- Identify ways in which to tackle above (this later became critical success factors with quantifiable objectives)
- Identify how this meshes with significant company/organizational unit stated goal(s)

Scope
- What is included in the project
- What is excluded from the project

Cost/Benefit Analysis
- List tangible and intangible(as well as one time and continuing); may even be stated by quarter or year
- Cost benefit justification (summary and argument for)

Assumptions/Dependencies/Risks
- State any things assumed, constraints and dependencies with regard to prior points
- Identify threa

(continued)

Assumptions/Dependencies/Risks
- State any things assumed, constraints and dependencies with regard to prior points
- Identify threats to successful completion, assess impact and state possible remedies
- Usually appear as separate sections

Roles/Responsibilities
- Identify the key roles, inherent responsibilities and possible person(s) to fill them
- Usually covers sponsor, project manager, tech/business coordinators, team, vested interests

Additional items I’ve seen covered are: high level work breakdown structure, development strategy and the obligatory signoff lines.

This has always been a touchstone document. Any changes are handled via the change management process and current info was summarized in some sort or periodic progress/performance report.

Specific, detailed requirements were part of another process/document.

Hope this helps.

Dave