Project Charters are an important project management document that should be created for all projects of moderate or higher complexity. Low complexity projects may need to have a project charter created for them if they have significant scope, cost, risks, assumptions, constraints, or resource requirements associated with the project.

 

One of the main purposes of a project charter is to ensure that expectations are properly set between a project’s sponsor and the team that is planning and managing the project. A project charter accomplishes this by documenting the mission and goals of the project, and how the project aligns with the organization’s overall strategy and targeted outcomes.  It also documents a project’s scope, deliverables, assumptions, constraints, interdependencies, timeline, and required resources.

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Project Charter Resources:

• Harvard Manage Mentor (via CGMA) has a Project Management topic that includes an entire module on Project Charters. There is also a Create a Project Charter task that provide a quick overview of charters and provides a worksheet that you use to gather the information for creating a charter.

• AICPA IMTA Section members and CITP credential holders also have access to a Safari Books Online benefit which includes a variety of books on project management, including “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), Fifth Edition” which is the core framework for managing all types of projects.

• Our Intraprise Project Charter Template is available for purchase from our online store. Our Microsoft Word template includes section templates to help you document the different areas of information that should be in a project charter, and notes to help remind you of the purpose of documenting a particular area of information.

• Our Project Charters for Accountants online course will be available in the SMB Advisor Learning Center in Fall 2017. If you would like to be notified when the course is available, please email info@smbadvisor.us to notified when the course is launched and receive a 50% discount.