Project Charter Template
Stay within scope, focus on deliverables, and get your entire team on the same page using a Project Charter Template.
About the Project Charter Template
Before diving into a project, it's important to make sure you have the necessary documentation that will help you succeed. One key document that you need is a project charter.
Read on to learn more about what a project charter is, when you should use one, and how you can create one using our Project Charter Template.
What is a project charter in project management?
A project charter is a unified source of truth for the details of a project. A project manager or project leader relies on the project charter to explain the core objectives, scope, and responsibilities of a project and its team, as well as some other key details. No matter how wide the project’s scope, the project manager can always refer back to the charter if anything is ever uncertain.
From the moment your project kicks off, a charter can help align every stakeholder around a shared understanding of the project’s objectives, strategies, and deliverables.
Ideally, the project sponsor, who is accountable for the project’s successful delivery, should write the project charter document. In reality, this task often falls to the project manager to draft before it is signed off by senior stakeholders or the project board.
When should you use a project charter?
When you’ve already got a budget, a project plan, a project schedule, and a statement of purpose, why do you need a project charter?
A project charter serves as a single source of truth that supersedes all others — you could call it the founding scripture of your project. When conflicts arise between the budget and timeline or between members of the team, the project leader can use the charter to arbitrate.
The more complex a project gets, and the more stakeholders and moving parts it acquires, the harder it becomes for the project manager to keep everyone on task without a project charter.
Charters are also crucial when you need to sell your project to key stakeholders — especially to decision-makers who may lack the technical knowledge of your project team. The charter is an elevator pitch that makes it easy for gatekeepers to understand the project details.
How to create a project charter
Do you want the easiest way to build a project charter that works the first time? Work from a template. Start by adding the Project Charter Template to your Miro board. Then, follow these steps:
Invite your project team members. The more people can contribute their input to the charter, the more smoothly you can work together on the project itself. Invite everyone to collaborate on your Miro workspace.
Brainstorm answers to the key categories. Below these steps, you’ll find a rundown of all the key sections in the template.
Fill in the results. Once you and your collaborators have settled on what information should go in each category, fill them in on the template.
Use the charter to get buy-in. Shop the finished template around to each stakeholder and get their opinion. As you go, make any changes necessary.
For a charter to be effective, it’s important for the project leader to include as many details as possible. At a minimum, you should make sure to address a few essential elements. The template includes 10 total sections.
Purpose is the ultimate goal of the project, the reason you’re launching it at all. Examples can include filling a niche, increasing customer loyalty, or boosting revenues.
Scope defines what is and isn’t part of the project. Define your scope clearly so your project doesn’t succumb to scope creep, continually bloating with new features and shipping far behind schedule.
Success criteria is a SMART goal (specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound) that can tell you whether the project has succeeded. A project with a criterion of “delighting all our customers forever” is bound to fail. Instead, try something like “obtain the highest market share in our industry.”
Team lists the people who will work directly on the project.
Stakeholders are people who aren’t on the project team, but who have a specific reason to care about how it turns out.
Users are the people the project is intended to benefit (in a way that pays dividends to your company). Unlike “team” and “stakeholders,” users will be segments of the population instead of specific people.
Resources are the organizational assets you can devote to the project, including money, time, people, equipment, and more.
Constraints are known factors that may get in the way of the project succeeding.
Risks are events which may or may not occur, but would threaten the project’s success if they did happen.
Timeline is a rough sketch of how long the project will take to complete, including action items that will define each phase and projected dates for key milestones.
Don’t go overboard on any of these points. The finished project charter shouldn’t be longer than a few pages. All the key information it holds needs to be visible at a glance.
Discover more project charter template examples and simplify your planning.
What is the main purpose of a project charter?
A charter is the ultimate source of truth for any questions that arise during execution. Whenever there’s conflict or ambiguity between objectives, people, or teams, the project manager or project sponsor can refer to the charter to clear it up.
How do you build a project charter?
Start by getting your team together in a collaborative workspace like Miro. Adding sticky notes to the template is a simple way to build consensus on key points about the project. Each of the template’s ten sections corresponds to a vital part of a charter: purpose, scope, success criteria, team, stakeholders, users, resources, constraints, risks, and timeline.
What should a project charter include?
At the bare minimum, a charter should list the project’s objectives, scope, deliverables, high-level budget, and the responsibilities of each team member. There are several other elements that the project sponsor may wish to consider. For example, risk identification and mitigation plans, the project timeline, a list of expected resource requirements, a list of key project stakeholders, and a project communication plan.
Get started with this template right now.
Project Status Report Template
Works best for:
Project Management, Documentation, Project Planning
When a project is in motion, the project manager must keep clients and shareholders updated on the project’s progress. Rather than waste time with constant meetings, leaders can send out weekly or daily project status reports to keep everyone informed. You can use the Project Status Report Template to streamline the report creation and distribution process.
Competitive Analysis Template
Works best for:
Marketing, Decision Making
Developing a great product starts with knowing the lay of the land (meaning who you’re up against) and answering a few questions: Who are your competitors? How does your product or service compare? What makes you stand out? A competitive analysis will help find the answers, which can ultimately shape your product, value prop, marketing, and sales strategies. It’s a great exercise when a big business event is about to occur — like a new product release or strategic planning session.
Epic & Feature Roadmap Planning
Epic & Feature Roadmap Planning template facilitates the breakdown of large-scale initiatives into manageable features and tasks. It helps teams prioritize development efforts based on business impact and strategic objectives. By visualizing the relationship between epics and features, teams can effectively plan releases and ensure alignment with overall project goals and timelines.
Funding Tracker Template
Works best for:
Kanban Boards, Operations
For many organizations, especially non-profits, funding is their lifeblood—and meeting fundraising goals is a crucial part of carrying out their mission. A funding tracker gives them a powerful, easy-to-use tool for measuring their progress and staying on course. And beyond helping you visualize milestones, this template will give you an effective way to inspire the public to donate, and help you keep track of those donors. It’s especially useful when you have multiple donations coming from a variety of sources.
Prune the Product Tree Template
Works best for:
Design, Desk Research, Product Management
Prune the Product Tree (also known as the product tree game or the product tree prioritization framework) is a visual tool that helps product managers organize and prioritize product feature requests. The tree represents a product roadmap and helps your team think about how to grow and shape your product or service by gamifying feedback-gathering from customers and stakeholders. A typical product tree has four symbolic features: the trunk, which represents the existing product features your team is building; the branches, each of which represents a product or system function; roots, which are technical requirements or infrastructure; and leaves, which are new ideas for product features.
Software Requirements Document
Works best for:
Product Development, Software Development
Unlock unmatched project clarity and effortlessly manage your software project requirements with Miro's Software Requirements Document Template. This template helps you empower your team by visually representing your project's scope, including functional and non-functional requirements. With dynamic flowchart features, you can effortlessly expand and refine your project details, ensuring a shared understanding among team members.