What Makes a Good Charter?

General
A Charter is a vehicle for organizing ideas, building consensus, gaining support and communicating preliminary thinking about a project. Done well, it can be the sales tool that convinces the initiating authority as well as the launching document that begins project definition for the planning team. Depending on the kind of project, it may have all of the parts discussed below, some of them-or a mix of some with special additional parts to address unique needs.

Whatever the mix, a good Charter should set the stage well for those who must conduct and approve the project. That means that it should justify it in terms of need, clarify the scope of activity, set broad goals for the kinds of qualities the result should possess, identify any special target applications or users, and relate the project to the strengths and policies of the sponsoring organization. It should also have a carefully thought out problem or mission statement that will be the first reference point for the expanded project definition to be undertaken by the project planning team.

Background
For projects narrowly confined to organizations (corporate product development projects, for example), a Background section may not be necessary because the project probably builds solidly on knowledge widespread within the organization. For other projects, a Background section is valuable, (1) to provide justification for the project, and (2) to "place" it in relation to problems it will address. A good background will include brief introductions to problems requiring attention and trends compelling change.

Project Statement (Mission Statement)
A Project or Mission Statement should point the way-succinctly, but with enough information to express the overall goal clearly. Crafting a good Project Statement is difficult because a delicate balance must be found between informing and prescribing. Enough information must be provided to enable the planning team to "see" the problem, but there must not be so much information that the team is unwittingly channeled to a prescribed solution.

A good statement should use operational language (rather than noun names) as much as possible. Noun names usually carry with them strong associations with archetypal concepts that can easily block creative explorations and fresh approaches to the problem.

Scope of the Project
In the section on Scope, a good Charter identifies initial boundaries for the project. Later, in Defining Statements, these can be expanded and explored as issues to clarify positions that the project will take. Who, what, when, where topics should be considered in this section-as examples: who the users will be; what the project will and will not attempt; when products will be deployed; and where they will be made available.

Project Goals
The Goals section deals with how and why. How the project will affect existing situations is a good place to begin. General intentions expressed as goals can establish the foundation for specific goals to follow.

Taking specific target areas (ideally first identified in the Scope section), subsections of this section should lay out goals that will show how the project will change conditions in these areas (how). Coupled with these goal descriptions, brief statements relating the goals to their problem contexts should place the goals in the perspective of the problems and trends of the Background introductions (if present), sharpen specific goal/need associations, and draw out the fit between goal characteristics and need implications (why).

Where other matters may also be variables in play, topic areas for the goals of this section may extend to them. Aspects of the planning process itself may be appropriate (for example, experimentation with the Structured Planning process or other developmental processes). Internal institutional agendas unrelated to direct project needs but important to higher organization-level goals, may be important. Competitive position in the marketplace, important whenever competition exists, may also warrant attention.

Fit with Existing Policy
As with some of the other sections, this section may not be needed. It is most useful for organizations that have strongly drawn policies and those that are concerned with presenting unified images to the outside world. Elements of this section should explain how the project fits in with the vision, intentions, goals, plans, existing operations and assets of the organization.

The purpose of this section is to make connections between the intent of the project and the organization as it exists. Because possible topics here vary considerably from organization to organization, references to them in any Charter will necessarily be custom tailored. Some of the topics that may be addressed if the section is included are:

(1) how project intent fits general organizational policy. This should show how the project supports the organizational Mission Statement and other relevant stated policy, goals and plans.

(2) how anticipated results will fit with existing operations and offerings of the organization. This should explore potential conflicts, enhancements and synergies with operations, products and services as they exist presently.

(3) how the project will affect the organization's user base. Here, potentially new users should be identified and the effects on current users projected.

(4) how the strengths of the organization can be mobilized. This should point out special opportunities to use organizational strengths to achieve the goals of the project, both for increased efficiencies and developmental effectiveness.