Simply put, the Project Charter initiates the project and authorizes the use of resources by the Project Manager necessary to achieve the project objectives.

The Project Charter is usually a short document executed by the Project Manager and Project Sponsor(s).

Useful link(s) to learn more about Project Charters and their major components:

1. Project Management Crash Course: What is a Project Charter?

The Project Charter is an important document because it provides the compass by which the project team sets its objectives. It helps avoid scope creep, allows you to monitor project success and keeps the entire team focused on the end-result.

Without a project charter the project has a much higher likelihood to grow and fail to meet its indented objectives at the outset. They can be used as part of a credit committee process to initiate activities for a defined scope of effort with a pre-agreed set of measurable results, schedules, budgets and objectives. Some useful areas to use a project objective:

1. Initiating R&D dollars

2. Due Diligence to support Equity Investments into projects or assets

3. Commencing construction activities for a project

4. Redesign of a manufacturing process

5. Market research efforts to review potential new markets or product offerings

6. Human Resource rolling out new web based training platform

7. New Product launch

There is no end to what types of activities Project Charters can be used for. They are a great way to clearly define objectives, set expectations early in the process, authorize work and measure results.

Here is a sample template to use for a Project Charter:

Here is a sample Project Charter Checklist: