project charter v2

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+Project Charter


When do we do the project charter ?


Initiation

DeliverableLessons learnedRisk

• Project Charter

• Stakeholder

Analysis

• Project

initiation

• Stakeholder

Gate ReviewGate Review

What’s the project ?


+Why do we do a project charter ?

Project manager needs to understand the project in order to run the project and to produce the expected outcomes

The way the project manager will set up and run the project depends of the priorities of the project

Obtaining commitement from the project owner is key to get support from the project owner/sponsor when things get difficult

It’s a sort of a contract between the project manager and the project sponsor

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+What are the key points ?

1) Project Description (What’s the project ?)

2) Importance of the project (Why is the project so important to the company, to the project owner? What’s the reason for doing this project?)

3) Object (What is the object/the thing we are going to produce?)

4) Objectives (What do you want to achieve ?)

5) Final outcomes (How things will happen when the project is finished ?)

6) Measures of success (How can we measure the success of the project ?

7) Success factors (On what should we relay on to make sure that the project can be done?)

8) Scope (What’s part of the project? What not? What’s part of the product/service? What’s not part of the product?)

9) Assumptions (When you don’t know you need to assume conditions)

10) Constraints (What are the major constraints that will influence your ability to achieve the objectives ?)

11) Organisation, roles, responsibilities (Who will take part into the project? What will be the role?)

12) Key stakeholder (Who will impact or will be impacted by the project?)

13) Main Steps (What are the main steps of the project ?)

14) Main Deliverables (What are the main tngibleor intangible objects produced to be delivered to the customer?

15) Main Risks (At this point what is the threat or any other negative occurrence that can cause damage to the project?)

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+1) Project Description –What’s the project ?

It’s a standalone statement

What accomplishes the project ?

Who will benefit from the accomplishement ?

Make it short, specific and concrete

Use verbs in your description

Make sure that everyone could understand and know what the project is about without reading further

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+1) Project Description –

Example : “We want to develop new environmentally friendly working conditions (replace light bulbs, windows ...) because we believe in happy employees (and there is much pressure from legal constraints and governmental standards)”

Example : “The purpose of the research project is for the students to learn how to formulate a simple natural language problem/task/application and to experience how to solve it using methods, algorithms and techniques taught in class. The students will conduct experimental evaluation on an interesting dataset and will analyze the obtained results.”

Example : “The Health System Measurement Project tracks government data on critical U.S. health system indicators. The website presents national trend data as well as detailed views broken out by population characteristics such as age, sex, income level, and insurance coverage status.”


+2) Importance of the project –Why does the company the project ?

Is the project important for the company?

What would happen to the company if the project fails?

Describe the importance from the viewpoint of the company, the project sponsor/owner?

Make it very clear, Be specific

Project are important when there’s a good reason to do them and when you will get hurt if you don’t !

Shortly represent the nature of the difficulties the organisation is facing : what’s the problem ? (or what the opportunity?)

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+2) Importance of the project –Example

Typical Reasons are often constraints or opportunities

Business need/new opportunity

Market demand (Apple watch, Pasta box)

Technological advance (Self driving vehicule, quick charging long lasting batteries, playing and living in virtual reality, low frequency connected objects)

Legal requirement (smoke detectors)

Governmental standard (accounting standards, financial reporting)

Example : “Customers expectations evolve so fast in food industry. It is very important to understand expectations. People are very careful about what the company is doing so it is important to share a common understanding on how we are respectful and transparent when we deal with food.”

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+3) Object –

What’s the object ?

What is at this point the tangible or intangible “thing/object” we are going to produce ?

Examples : bridge, conference, database, information system, …

Be careful the object gives often the impression that you already know about the solution you want to put in place.

Make sure to differentiate the object and the objectifs


+3) Object –

Examples

Building a bypass road for Bruxelles

Database database for fianance infractions

Organizing a pain congress

Relieve the traffic congestion in

Bruxelles

Be able to identify and punish

global corporate taxe avoiding

Inform and make doctors more

confortable treating pain

Object Objectives


+4) Objectives –

What do you want to achieve ?

What do you want to achieve ?

What will you see when the project is done ?

What will be the business benefits ?

Objectifs are linked to business, to the product/service

They need to be SMART (specific, measurable, accurate, ralistic and time framed)

There must be some kind of priority ? (1. 2. 3. …)

It must be clear what is the priority of the project (delay, cost, quality)


+4) Project Smart Goals

Specific

What do I want to accomplish? Why do I want to accomplish the project? Who will benefit? Where is the location? Which are the requirements/constraints?

Measurable

How much? How many? How will I know when the project is completed?

Achievable & Ambitious

Is it feasible ? Can we achieve our goals? Are their ambitious enough?

Relevant & Realistic

Does it matter ? Does this seem worthwhile? Does this match to our context? Does it match to our goals?

Time Bounded

When ? Main milestones due dates ?

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+4) Objectives –

Examples

1. Making 50 000 euros the first year of product launch

2. In six month 90% of our products will be available in our

online shop

3. 100% compliance with HTML 5 standard


+5) Final Outcome - How things will happen when the project is finished ? Project Final Outcome /After project desired state

How it will look like when the problem is solved?

How things will be processed?

Examples

Database : Incoming documents are processed more quickly and accurately (and that can be put in measurable dimensions)

Training Project : People will be able to apply 5 management competencies in their office


+6) Measures of success

(Success criterias)

How can we measure the success of the project ?

How do we know that we are successful at the end of the

project ?

What will the solution enable the customer to do or to have ?

Examples :

Our clients come back twice to our restaurant (6 months period)

90% of the departement will use the new tools


+7) Success factors

On what factors/things should we relay on to make sure that te

project can be done ?

What’s going to help us doing the projet?

What are the ingrediants we need to get the things the right

way?

Examples :

Understand customer needs

Be sure to be able to finance the project


+8. Project Scope/Product Scope

What is part of the project/product/service ?

What is not part of the project/product/service?

Clearly state what results / deliverables will or will not be delivered.

“The catalog will feature 100 garden products but no product for the house” is better than “The catalog will feature many products”

“The new property will include the following : driveway, main home garage, foundation but not the landscaping”

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+Project Scope/Product Scope

Examples

Example : Organizing an international conference in order to exchange on the effectiveness of the latest drugs against ebola. We’ll invite all the countries facing ebola epedemie and all countries developping drugs. We do not welcome the other countries. ONG are excluded. Pharmaceutical companies are included.

Example : A merger between two banks is a project. What will be part of the activities of the two banks that are merged. Are human issues part of the merger project or not?

Example : Delivery of solar panels on companies roofs is part of the project. Adding a wind turbine on the site to reduce impact on the environnement and also reduce electircity costs is not part of the project.


9. Assumptions – What are you assumptions when you don’t have all the information necessary?

When you information level is too low you can make assumptions that will guide your action

Assumptions made about the project related to resources, scope, expectations and schedules.

Assumptions must be defined for :

Effort: The estimated tasks and activities required to manage the project and produce deliverables.

• Schedule: The estimated tasks and events needed to complete the project, organized into a structured sequence to meet a specified project end date.

• Resources: The estimated staff resources needed to complete the project, according to number, type, work hours, and skills.

• Budget: The estimated cost of the project, allocated to tasks, resources and phases as needed to complete the project.

• Vendors and Procurement: The anticipated performance of contractors, vendors and suppliers to deliver goods and services according to contracts and project requirements.

• Management Process: Management standards can serve as a constraint on project performance, adding quality control overhead.


9. Assumptions – What are you assumptions when you don’t have all the information necessary?

When you information level is too low you can make assumptions that will guide your action

Assumptions made about the project related to resources, scope, expectations and schedules.

Example : The reorganisation project of a worldwide organization will centralize every business process: cultural barriers will be a major obstacle to the implementation of the huge IT system to be developed.

Example : Organizing this sports event does not require any unusal resource but it will need a very tight management of the schedules because of the short timelaps left.


10. Constraints

What are the major constraints that will influence your ability to achieve the objectives ?

Examples

The first way of implementation cannot exceed 1 April 2011

The budget for this project cannot exceed $1.5 for both implementation waves

Some 25% of future system users are not competent in basic PC usage.

Legal environmental regulations cannot be left out in Europe when producing the ne packaging solution.

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+11. Organisation, Roles, responsabilites

1 x Steering Committee

1 x Project Manager

Process Owners

Executive Sponsor

Functionality

TeamSupplier

Technical

Team

Change Mgt &

End User Training


+Key stakeholders


13 and 14. Main Steps and deliverables

Phase Phase Start /

End dates

Milestone

Deliverable

Discovery Phase

Scoping & Visioning

Design Phase

Construction Phase

Testing &Delivery Phase

Go live with Pilot Sites

Roll out and Project Close

out Sign-off


+15. Project Risk Assessment Summary

Identified Risk $ Impact and mitigation strategy

project charter v2

Education

project manager

project ownersponsor

project sponsor3

research project

project description

project description

main steps

scope whats