Project charter template: what goes in it, with a filled-in example

What a project charter is for

The charter does three jobs. It authorises the project, so people and money can be committed. It names the project manager and gives them authority to use those resources. And it records a shared understanding of why the project exists and what success means, before anyone writes a detailed plan.

The PMBOK Guide treats the charter as the main output of initiating a project. PRINCE2 covers similar ground in its project brief. Whatever the name, the content is the same: the essentials, agreed and signed by the sponsor.

A charter is not a project plan. It does not list tasks or detailed dates. Those come next, in the work breakdown structure and the schedule. Keep the charter short enough that a busy sponsor reads all of it.

Project charter template

Copy this table into a document and fill in the middle column. The example column uses a customer portal project.

Section	What to write	Example
Project name	A short, specific name	Customer self-service portal, phase 1
Purpose (business case)	The problem or opportunity, in two or three sentences	Customers phone us to check order status. A portal lets them check it themselves and frees support time.
Objectives	Measurable outcomes, ideally with a target and a date	Customers can view orders and invoices online by 30 June; status calls fall measurably within three months of launch
Scope: in	The main deliverables	Login, order list, order detail, invoice download, English and Arabic pages
Scope: out	What people might assume is included but is not	Online payment, mobile app store app, changes to the warehouse system
Milestones	Four to eight key dates	Design approved (15 Feb), build complete (30 Apr), user testing done (31 May), launch (30 Jun)
Budget	Total, with contingency shown separately	$85,000 including $8,000 contingency
Sponsor	The person who owns the business case and approves changes	Head of customer service
Project manager and authority	Name, and what they can decide alone	Digital project lead; may approve changes up to $2,000 or one week
Key stakeholders	Groups affected or needed	Support team, IT, finance, a panel of five customers
Assumptions	Things taken as true for planning	The order system can expose data through its existing interface
Constraints	Fixed limits	Must launch before the peak season in July
Key risks	The three to five biggest threats or opportunities	Order system interface slower than expected; customer testers unavailable
Success criteria	How the sponsor will judge the result at closure	Portal live, accepted by support, within budget, launched by 30 June
Approval	Signature and date	Sponsor, project manager

How to write a project charter in five steps

1. Interview the sponsor for 30 to 60 minutes. Ask why now, what happens if the project does not run, what a good result looks like, the budget envelope and the hard deadline.
2. Draft the purpose, objectives and scope first. These drive everything else. Write the "out of scope" list with the same care as the "in scope" list.
3. Add rough milestones and budget. Use ranges if you must, and show contingency as its own line so it is visible and approved.
4. List three to five risks and the key assumptions. An assumption that turns out false often becomes the project's biggest issue, so write them down now.
5. Review with key stakeholders, then get the signature. A charter that the sponsor has not formally approved does not authorise anything.

Writing objectives that can be checked

The objectives row is where most charters are weakest. "Improve customer experience" cannot be checked at closure. A useful test: could two people independently look at the finished project and agree whether the objective was met? Compare:

• Weak: "Modernise the warehouse."
• Better: "Replace the paper picking process with handheld scanners in both warehouses by 31 October, within $120,000."

Include a target and a date, and separate the project objectives (what the project delivers) from the business benefits (what changes afterwards). The project manager controls the first; the sponsor usually owns the second.

Who writes the charter, and when

The sponsor owns the charter, but the project manager (or a business analyst) usually drafts it, because they will live with it. Write it as soon as the project has been chosen and before any detailed planning or spending starts. If people are already working before the charter is signed, the project is running without agreed scope, budget or authority, and every later argument will be harder to settle.

Scale it to the project. A two-month internal project may need a single page covering purpose, scope, dates, budget and sponsor. A multi-year contract may need the full table plus an organisation chart and a summary of the procurement approach. The test is the same in both cases: does it give the sponsor enough to decide, and the team enough to start planning?

Common project charter mistakes

• Writing a plan instead of a charter. Twenty pages of tasks hide the decisions the sponsor needs to make.
• No "out of scope" list. Unwritten exclusions become arguments in month three.
• No named sponsor. A committee cannot approve changes quickly. Name one person.
• Unclear authority for the project manager. State what they may approve alone, for example changes up to a set amount or a set number of days.
• Never revisiting it. If the purpose or budget changes materially, update the charter through change control and re-sign it.

How to do this in Critova

In Critova, create the project from one of the project templates, attach the signed charter in the project's files, and copy the milestones and budget into the plan so they become the first baseline. Put the charter's key risks straight into the risk register with owners, and route later scope or budget changes through change requests, which record the budget and date impact and whether the sponsor approved or rejected them. To size the contingency line with ranges instead of a single guess, the three-point estimate calculator is a quick start.