Lecture 5

• Project charter

  An informal contract between the project team and the sponsor
• Project charter

  • It is a contract that cannot arbitrarily be changed, offers something of value for each party, and is a living document that can evolve with changing conditions
• Front-end planning (FEP)


  The essential process of developing sufficient strategic information with which owners can address risk and make decisions to commit resources in order to maximize the potential for a successful project
• Reasons why a project charter is used

  • Authorize the project manager to proceed
  • Help to develop a common understanding
  • Help create commitment
  • Screen out poor projects
• Common understanding

  Teamwork, agreement, trust, communication, and commitment develop, and the sponsor is less likely to change the original agreement
• A project charter is needed when starting a new project
• Typical elements in a project charter

  • Title
  • Scope overview
  • Business case
  • Background
  • Milestone schedule
  • Risks/assumptions/constraints
  • Spending approvals/budget estimates
  • Communication plan requirements
  • Team operating principles
  • Lessons learned
  • Signatures and commitment
• Scope overview

  A high-level description of "what" and "how" - the project in a nutshell, including product scope and requirements
• Business case

  The project purpose or justification statement, answering the "why?" and tying the project to the organization's strategy
• Background

  Used to provide more detail to support the scope statement and business case statements
• Milestone schedule

  A summary-level schedule that identifies the major schedule milestones or significant points or events in the project
• Deliverable

  Any unique and verifiable product, result, or capability to perform a service that is required to be produced to complete a process, phase, or project
• Acceptance criteria

  Standards, rules, or tests by which a product, service, result, or process can be evaluated
• Assumption

  Factors in the planning purposes, that are considered to be true, real, or certain without proof or demonstration
• Risk

  An uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on a project's objectives
• Lessons learned

  The knowledge gained during a project which shows how project events were addressed or should be addressed in the future with the purpose of improving performance
• Constructing a project charter

  1. The sponsor creates the first draft of scope overview and business case

  2. Leadership team may contribute information in addition to the business case and scope overview

  3. One to four sentences should be written for the scope overview and business case
• Leadership team

  May contribute information in addition to the business case and scope overview
• Six Steps in Constructing a Milestone Schedule

  1. Describe the current situation that requires the project

  2. Describe the project at its successful completion

  3. Describe the acceptance criteria for the final project deliverables

  4. Determine the few key points in the milestone column where quality needs to be verified

  5. For each milestone, determine who the primary stakeholder(s) is(are) and how the resulting deliverable will be judged

  6. Determine expected completion dates for each milestone
• Risks

  Brainstorm all risks to schedule, budget, usefulness, satisfaction
• Assumptions

  Important with cross-functional teams
• Risk Assessment Example

  • Probability, Impact, Risk Level
• Risk Response Planning Example

  • Risk, Response, Owner, Due Date
• Resources Needed

  Use crude estimates, follow a limit of spending authority if developed
• Stakeholder List

  Identify all stakeholders, determine most important stakeholders, ask each stakeholder what interest they have in the project
• Lessons Learned

  Consider what has worked/not worked, report lessons learned at key reviews and project completion, make lessons available in a knowledge base
• Project Lessons Learned Example

  • Lesson, Action, Owner, Due Date
• Signatures and Commitment

  Project sponsor, manager, team members
• Ratifying the Project Charter

  Present the project charter to the sponsor for approval, sponsor asks questions for clarification and agreement, the sponsor, project manager, and core team sign the project charter
• Construct a Milestone Schedule

  1. Task Name cells, enter milestone names

  2. Duration cells, enter 0 for each milestone

  3. For each milestone row: Double click a field to activate Task Information dialog, Advanced tab, Constraint Type, Must Finish On, Constraint date, enter milestone date, Okay
• The project charter enables the project sponsor, project manager, and core team to agree on the project at a high level
• Charters include a scope overview, business case, milestone schedule, acceptance criteria, risks, and signatures
• The charter is the document that completes the project initiating stage
• The Information Systems Enhancement Project Charter was used when a nonprofit agency formed a project team to upgrade its information systems
• The content principles provide suggestions regarding the content of each section