Project Charter Writing Guide[1]

This writing guide provides critical background information for the project charter assignment. What follows are some general guidelines and then specific section-by-section guidance on how to approach the assignment.

• Your Objective: Your objective on this project is to demonstrate your knowledge of the project management related tools and techniques covered in the course notes and the PMBOK Guide. While creative writing can be fun, it should not distract you from demonstrating the PMBOKs learning objectives.
• Individual or Team assignment: If you wish, you can team up with one or more other students and work as a group on this and/or any other course assignment. Please let the facilitator know if you have a teaming arrangement in place, and make sure that all group members names appear on your assignment.
• Follow the template: When creating your assignment, be sure to attempt each section, as grades have been allocated to each section. No marks can be awarded for a missing section, and marks cannot be awarded for information that is not called for in the template.
• Third-Party Material: While research for this project is encouraged, you need to both cite and reference any third-party material that you use in your assignment. You are free to use any standard citing and reference methodology.
• Identification: Please ensure that your name and the course title are clearly indicated on all assignment submissions. If you are part of a group, then please make sure that the names of all group members are included on the assignment.
• Late Submissions: If a valid reason exists and you cannot submit the assignment on time, you must notify the facilitator at least 24 hours in advance of the due date. Extensions are possible under certain conditions. If an assignment is submitted late without approval, it can be subject to late penalties as well as being returned with only a grade assessment (without accompanying detailed feedback and comments).

What follows is a section-by-section guide as to the type of information that needs to appear in your assignment.

1. Title Page: You can have fun with your title page (illustrations and graphics), but at a minimum, the title page must have the following information on it:

• Your name (or the names of all members of your group),
• The course name,
• The project name (have fun and think up a name for your project!)
• The date submitted, and
• The following statement: All material prepared for this assignment was produced by the author(s), and material from a third party (such as the internet) has been cited and referenced.

2. Table of Contents: The Table of Contents must be generated using your word processors built-in Table of Contents generation feature (found within the [Reference] Tab of Microsoft Word). If you have not worked with the Table of Contents feature in the past, then this is a good chance to learn some of Microsoft Words additional features.
3. Project Background: In this section you can provide relevant project-related information that would have been previously published and used as an input to the project charter. This information has not been provided for you; instead, you can make up appropriate background information. Examples of the types of information that you can present in this section include:
   • Statement of Work (PMBOK Guide section 4.1.1.1): Consider the type of information that would have been previously published in the projects statement of work.
   • Business Case: Consider the type of information that would have been previously published in the project business case (for example, desired project outcomes or project justification information).
4. Project Purpose (Goal): Assume that the reader is unfamiliar with this project and provide a short (one or two sentences), concise statement as to what the projects purpose (or goal) is. In this section you will be evaluated on your understanding of the term project purpose and on how well you can practically demonstrate the use of that term as it relates to this project.
5. Project Objectives (PMBOK Guide Glossary): In this section, you should state what your projects objectives are. You should demonstrate between 3 and 5 objectives for this project. For this section you will be evaluated on your understanding of the term project goal and on how well you can practically demonstrate the use of that term.
6. Project Exclusions (Out-Of-Scope Work) (PMBOK Guide Section 5.3.3.1): Identify examples of work that would be commonly associated with a project of this nature, but will not be completed as part of the project. In this section, you should list several out-of-scope items to demonstrate your understanding of this concept.
7. High-Level Assumptions: Provide 3 to 5 examples of high-level project assumptions that would impact the project planning. For this section you will be evaluated on your ability to demonstrate the appropriate assumptions that would be relevant to the planning process.
8. High-Level Constraints: Provide examples of 2 to 3 external constraints that would have a direct impact on the project planning. Also provide a very brief description of their impact. (Note: The projects budget and schedule would be considered internal constraints and cannot be used in this section.)
9. Known Problems, Anticipated Issues, and Potential Risks (PMBOK Guide Glossary): Identify any problems, issues or risks that will need to be overcome, or that might be encountered as part of this project. Ensure that you clearly indicate which of your examples you consider to be problems, issues or risks you will be evaluated on your understanding of these terms.
10. High-Level Requirements are conditions that are required to be present in a product, service, or result to satisfy a contract. There are many types of requirements (PMBOK Guide Section 5.2) - in this section you are to provide examples of requirements as a typical customer would define them. Essentially, give examples of how a customer might describe what features, style, functionality or elements they would like to have as part of this project (keep in mind your project scope, and restrict your requirements to only those that are relevant to the projects scope).
11. Deliverables (PMBOK Guide Glossary): List five examples of deliverables that would result as part of fulfilling the projects stated requirements (see previous section).
12. Project Milestones (PMBOK Guide section 6.2.3.3): Review the definition of a project milestone and then complete the following milestone table with 4-6 examples of milestones that would be appropriate for a project of this nature.

Milestone Name	Milestone Description	Milestone Date

Of most importance to the milestone section is your supporting description of why the milestone candidate should be considered a milestone for this project and what impact the proposed milestone will have on the overall project planning process.

13. Project Stakeholders (PMBOK Guide section 13.1): Identify four project stakeholders who would be appropriate for a project of this nature. Consider the following types of information when describing your stakeholders:
    • Your first stakeholder should represent your projects voice of the customer. The voice of the customer is defined in the PMBOK Guide Glossary. Support this selection by providing a brief explanation as to why you feel this person should be the voice of the customer, and ensure that you demonstrate your understanding of the role that they will play on the project.
    • Identify three stakeholders (for this assignment, identify them by the title or role that they play in the project).
    • What elements of the project are they involved in?
    • How do they contribute to the project?
    • What do they need from the project? (Information? Or otherwise?)
    • Who do they report to?
    • What are their needs and expectations for this project? Ensure that you provide enough information so that the project manager can accommodate these stakeholders as part of their communication management planning.

Key to the stakeholder section is to consider what information the project manager would need to know about these stakeholders to be able to proceed with the planning of this project. It is important that you only provide examples of stakeholder information that would be useful and beneficial in the project planning stage.

14. Project Manager Responsibilities and Authority Level (see PMBOK Guide section 9.1.3.1): In this section, you need to define the following:
    • Identify who the project manager will be for this project;
    • What the main responsibilities of the project manager are; and
    • What authority has been assigned to the project manager to carry out their responsibilities?
15. Payment Schedule (or high-level summary budget): Develop a spending framework for the project that conveys the project sponsors funding priorities. Keep in mind that this is a high-level budget and it is not to the same level of detail as there would be in the project plan budget.

Your summary budget should be in table format and convey how much the projects sponsor is willing to pay per deliverable and/or milestone achieved.

16. Document Approval Section: Create an approval section for the overall document that shows that the main stakeholders agree to the charter. This section should contain an appropriate approval statement and corresponding signature blocks. In this section you need to not only demonstrate an appropriate approval statement, but also demonstrate your knowledge of who needs to approve the project charter.
17. Bibliography: Provide proper citation of all open-source resources that you have used in preparing your assignments. You will most likely need to do some research to complete this assignment research is greatly encouraged, but drawing information directly from third-party material is not. You should minimize the use of third-party material, and if you need to use it, then it is important that you cite it within your work. At a minimum, any section that is found to contain any amount of uncited third-party material will receive a grade of zero. The College can impose additional sanctions, if deemed to be warranted.

[1] NOTE: The template provided in this assignment must be followed. Most students can easily fulfill all learning requirements for this assignment in approximately 6-9 pages. (The page count does not include your cover page, Table of Contents and bibliography.)