PMP® Introduction - How to develop the process charter

There is a document in PMP® documentation which formally authorizes a project namely project charter. It is provided by the project manager who must have the legal right and be authorized to apply organizational resources to a project activities. The project manager is assigned and identified as early as possible. It is definitely advisable to designate a project manager before beginning of planning and it is the mostly recommended to do it while the project charter is being developed. The project charter is issued by the sponsor( person external to the project organization) or a project founder.

In most cases it is an external to organization enterprise, a government agency, a company, a programme organization or a portfolio organization which charter and authorise projects. This happens because of one of many various aspects. First one could be simply a market demand. What is also possible is a business need. It is also worth mentioning a customer request, social needs, technological advance or legal requirements. These factors can also be perceived as problems, chances or even business requirements. What is the main point of focus of all these points is that management must make a decision concerning the way of responding as well as which projects should be authorized and charter.

The way of choosing methods involves value measurement or measurement of the attractiveness to the project owner or to the sponsor. They may include also many different organizational decision criteria. Choosing and specifying the project also applies to selecting number of diverse ways of executing the it. The ongoing work of the organization is strictly connected with the chartering a project links. The completion of necessary assessment and requirements, feasibility study, preliminary plan and many more different equivalent form of analysis charter and initiate project in a formal way in some organizations.

What concerns the project charter development the most is the fact of gathering documenting he business needs, requirements as well as project justification, proper understanding of the customer?s needs and orders together with new product, service or even the outcome that is supposed to satisfy previously mentioned requirements. It is of vital importance for the project charter to refer either directly or in an indirect manner to address the information given here:

  • Requirements that are the most probably going to satisfy the needs and wants of all the parties involved in the project ( customer, sponsor, stakeholders)
  • Very detailed project description as well as description of the business needs or product requirements which the project is supposed to address.
  • The purpose of the project as well as its justification
  • Selected project manager together with the authority level
  • The summary milestone plan
  • The influences which the stakeholders will have
  • The possible participation of the functional organizations
  • Different kinds of assumptions: organizational, environmental and external
  • Different kinds of constraints: organizational, environmental and external
  • The case which will justify the project in which both return and investment will be included
  • Summary of the budget.

source: PMP® Resources
published: 2010-06-23 10:21:11

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