# Project charter A project charter is a short document that frames a project before the work starts: why it exists, what it should achieve, what's in and out of scope, who's involved, and the main constraints and risks. The [[Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)|PMBOK Guide]] defines it as the document, issued by the project's sponsor, that formally authorizes the project and gives the project manager the authority to use organizational resources. PMBOK doesn't impose a format. In organizations, the authorization is the point. On personal or small-team projects, it doesn't matter, but the framing does: writing one page forces you to state the problem, the goal and the [[Success criteria]] before committing time, and gives you something to check new requests against when [[Scope creep]] starts. A typical charter covers: - The problem and why it matters now - The objective and the success criteria - Scope in and scope out (non-goals) - Stakeholders, roles and who decides (see [[RACI Matrix]] and [[DACI Decision-Making Framework]]) - Timeline, budget and other constraints - Key risks and assumptions (a [[Pre-mortem]] helps here) Atlassian's Project Poster is a free public format for the same job. It has three sections (Problem space, Validation, Ready to make it) and is meant as a living document that the team refines over several conversations. Atlassian's play takes about 90 minutes, for 3 to 10 people. ## References - https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays/project-poster - https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/charter-selling-project-7473 - https://concepts.dsebastien.net/concept/project-charter/ ## Related - [[Success criteria]] - [[Scope creep]] - [[Iron Triangle]] - [[Pre-mortem]] - [[RACI Matrix]] - [[DACI Decision-Making Framework]] - [[Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)]] - [[On the importance of non-goals (Article)]] - [[Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)]] - [[Project Management Institute (PMI)]] - [[Knowledge Worker Kit - 06.01 What counts as a project]] - [[Project Management (MoC)]]