Jim Owens PMP: Who Writes the Project Charter?

Jim OwensPMP

I was so pleased when I read the “Develop Project Charter” section of Project  Integration Management in PMBOK Fourth Edition. They have finally caught up with what really happens in real projects (maybe they have been reading JIMBOK

In JIMBOK, Integration Management I wrote:

“The charter should be written by the project manager (or at least a PM), as the PM is the person in the organisation with the necessary skills to create the charter”.

And this is what I have been teaching project managers for years. But you wouldn’t believe the struggles I’ve had to get some PM’s to accept it.

They argued that only a sponsor could draw up a charter, but my response was that many sponsors don’t have the necessary skills or training required to write a charter, yet it’s well within a project manager’s capabilities.

Then they argued that as it was the charter that named and authorized the project manager, the project manager could not be involved in it’s writing. Who says they can’t?

Well these arguments are pretty well settled, when you read PMBOK Fourth Edition.

Page 73

“It is recommended that the project manager participate in the development of the project charter”

And Page 74

“Projects are authorized by someone external to the project such as a sponsor, PMO, or portfolio steering committee. The project initiator or sponsor …will either create the project charter or delegate that duty to the project manager. “

So I think that’s pretty clear.

The other reason of course why you, as project manager, should write (or being heavily involved in the writing of) the charter, is that the charter will have a big influence on your project, and so it makes a lot of sense having some level of control or influence of your own, in these earliest stages.

Small is beautiful

And I’ll finish with a reminder that the charter is a very high-level document with very few pages (often one or two pages). Why? Because in these earliest stages nobody knows much detail (and what they do know will change – often).  Besides, the more you have in writing at the stage, the more people will argue over it, so it will delay the project authorization and you can’t bill the arguing time to the project. Why not?

Because the project isn’t authorized, so there’s no budget of cost account!

Never mind the quality, feel the width.

Some consultancy firms that I’ve dealt with have a 200+ page tome of standard “boilerplate” that they call a charter, and they sell this to unsuspecting organisations (with changes to the relevant fields, of course). This looks impressive when printed with a glossy, full-color binding, but it costs more per pound than precious metal, and is as worthless as lead.

Many projects fail in the early stages, so follow this simple advice and give your project a fighting chance.

Jim Owens PMP

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Related posts:

1. Jim Owens: Power in Project
2. Jim Owens: Life After PMP
3. Jim Owens: PRINCE2(TM) History and Overview

July 29th, 2009 | Tags: CAPM, JIMBOK, PMP | Category: General, JIMBOK

6 comments to Jim Owens PMP: Who Writes the Project Charter?

• Cornelius Fichtner, PMP

  July 30th, 2009 at 6:00 am

  Jim,

  I totally agree with what you say. The 3rd edition PMBOK was quite unclear about this particular topic that it has prompted many questions from my PMP students. I always told them that we have to distinguish between the letter of the law (i.e. PMBOK Guide) and the spirit of the law.

  In my view, even under PMBOK Guide 3 it was always the PM’s responsibility to write the charter. Even though it didn’t specifically say so. And now we finally have the confirmation that you and I were right.

  I wrote a blog post about this topic some time back as well. It can be found here: http://www.cornelius-fichtner.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=105:who-creates-and-signs-the-project-charter&catid=38:pmp&Itemid=60

  Until Next Time,
  Cornelius Fichtner, PMP

• Mike Newell

  July 30th, 2009 at 8:24 am

  It was really nice to see that someone agrees with me. I have been teaching this in classrooms for 20 years and the students are always surprised when I say the Project Charter only needs the project manager’s name, the project name and an account for charges.

  More projects get into trouble because the project charter is too long and because there is no approved charge people hide time in other projects.

  It should be simple and if you need anything more do it after the project charter is approved and you have a valid account.

• Rahul

  August 1st, 2009 at 9:01 pm

  Nicely written. My doubt is if Project Manager is the person who is going to write the project charter then why its written that Senior management is responsible for the project charter

• pmhubadmin

  August 1st, 2009 at 9:23 pm

  one is responsible for the doc – spirit of the project – the other is responsible for drafting the document

• Leslie, PMP aspirant

  August 4th, 2009 at 10:22 am

  Jim, I like this article since it shows a real life approach for the creation of the Project Charter. I would uderline that this statement is one of the most important: “And I’ll finish with a reminder that the charter is a very high-level document with very few pages (often one or two pages). Why? Because in these earliest stages nobody knows much detail (and what they do know will change – often).”

• umar farooq

  March 11th, 2010 at 8:04 pm

  Dear Jim

  my question is who is responsible for the correctness of project charter if it is written by project manager ?

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