A project charter is a term used in project management. The project charter is a document used to give an overview of the project. The project charter identifies the goals, timeframe, risks, plan of how to implement the task, the scope of the project, and other essential information about your project. Here are some guidelines with free project charter templates that help you to understand it easily. Below we share project plan guides with free templates, lots of project charter examples, and samples, which is enough to understand it easily.

Table of Contents

A list of project charter templates is available here. You can select and download any of these according to your needs.

Download Free Project Charter Templates

project charter template word — Project Charter Template 02

one page project charter template — Project Charter Template 03

project charter template pdf — Project Charter Template 04

project charter template excel — Project Charter Template 05

project charter template pmi — Project Charter Template 06

project charter template google docs — Project Charter Template 07

What Is Project Charter Template

The project charter is a document that is used to explain the project’s outline clearly and concisely. The project charter template is used to describe all the objectives, resources, how tasks are accomplished to achieve the desired goals, the scope of the project, the time required to complete the project, cost estimation, project strategies, and project boundaries to the stakeholders of the project. Here you’ll find a great collection of project charter templates in Word, Excel, PPT, and PDF. The project charter can be 10-20 pages, but a detailed project charter is a waste of time. The project charter should be clear and concise and provide the outline of the whole project on one page.

The one-page project charter template is a document that defines all the necessary information about your project, which is gathered in one place. It describes the roles and responsibilities of each team in the project. If you don’t have any idea about it, see sample project charter templates which help you to understand more about it. The project charter is created collaboratively as a team before the project is staffed. It is made in the early stages of the project and then shared with the stakeholders upon completion of how their budget and resources will be distributed and how the project will be prepared. Project charter documents are now available in different formats in which project charter Word, excel, and ppt are included.

How To Create a Project Charter Template

It isn’t effortless and time-consuming to create your project charter template. We share a list of free project charter templates that you can download in one click.

If you create your project charter template, then follow these steps to map out your project. It is also helpful for understanding every component or element of the project charter.

identify the vision of your project

The first step is to identify the vision of your project. If you don’t recognize the concept of your project, you’ll not be able to move forward. The invention covers the objectives, goals, and deliverables of the project.

Project objectives: List 3 to 5 targets as the aim of your project. Every goal should be Specific, measurable, Attainable, Real, and time-bound (SMART).
Scope of the project: The next step is to determine the scope of the project in which you describe the formal boundaries of the project by identifying how the business will be altered or changed by the delivery of your project. Also, see Project scope templates in different formats.
Deliverables: you are required to distinguish each one that the project will be created — Deliverables of the project are tracked by a task tracking template.

Identify the structure of your project.

The structure of your project is identified in this step; there are four subsets of this step. How the project will be structured is done by listing the following:

Customers/End-users: Who are the project customers? A client or person who is responsible for receiving the deliverables of the project.
Stakeholders: identify the stakeholders of the project. A stakeholder is a person within or outside of the project, which has a specific key interest in your project’s outcome. They invest in your project and have a great concern with the development of the project because the output of the project is directly affected by the input of the stakeholders.
Roles: list the roles and responsibilities of each member involved in the delivery of the project. The roles and responsibilities of the project manager, project sponsor, and project board are described in this step.
Structure: Now, you need to describe the line of reporting in your project charter between these roles.

Approach to implementation

Now you know very well about your project; you know the vision and organize all the other parts of your project. The following steps help you to implement your plan.

Implementation plan: Now, you need a plan to implement your project. It would be best if you created an atmosphere of confidence for your stakeholders and customers. The way to achieve this is by listing the phases, activities, and timeframe of the project’s life cycle. You can list all the events with the date and present them by Vertical Timeline, download a free vertical timeline template in one click.
Milestones: list all the necessary milestones with their description of why they are required and keep track of these milestones. Milestones are an essential project event, such as acknowledging the completion of key deliverables.
Dependencies: A dependency in a project is an activity that probably impacts the life cycle of the project. These activities or tasks are linked to one another. List all these dependencies with their importance in the project.
Resource plan: Develop a plan for summarizing the resources. After that, break down this list into labor, equipment, and materials. This is the best way to estimate your budget more accurately. To keep track of all of your expenses, you should use “Budget Templates” for an overview of your current financial status.

List the risks and issues.

The final step in the project charter process is to identify the risks and issues related to the project. A risk is an issue that may or may not happen in the project. An issue that has already occurred in the project.

See an example of a construction project charter to understand it and help you make your project charter for any project. To save you time and make your work easier.

Role of a Project Charter

The project charter is the best planning tool for the development of any project. It is helpful to know all the risks and issues of this project before its implementation. It is the best way to establish a great relationship with your stakeholders and the presentation of your project. The Charter of a project helps you make some critical decisions about it before its application. If you want to complete your project successfully, then you should make a charter of it. How project charter helps you to complete your project successfully :

Outline the objectives of your project
Helps to map out your project
Establish a great relationship with stakeholders
Help to identify the structure of your project
Define the roles and responsibilities of each member
Give a plan of how to implement the project
Provide the solution to every issue
Identify the scope of the project
Identify the stakeholders of the project
Great project management tool
Identify the risks and issues of the project
Defines all the dependencies with their importance
Track the progress of your project

Benefits Of Project Charter

The project charter is essential for the development of any project. You can download free project plan templates in different formats, which helps you to explain your project in a better way. It has lots of benefits; the following are some essential benefits of the project charter.

It helps to provide clear and concise details of your project.
It helps to convey a clear outline of your project to every member of this project.
With the project charter, you know all the objectives and constraints of the project.
A clear description of the project will be found in one place.
A complete list of goals, features, deliveries, and dependencies of the project.
Helps to make some decisions on projects.
Everyone knows their roles and responsibilities with the help of it.
It helps to identify the implementation plan
Details about the project budget resources
Clarify all the risks and issues of this project which may help the stakeholder to make some decisions
Best way to map out your project
Help to track the progress of your project
Help to improve the project management process
The best way to approach the implementation of the project
Contact information of all the members involved in completing the project

Essential Element Of Project Charter

Some essential elements of a project charter are as follows:

The objective of the project is clear and concise wording.
Scope of the project in a few lines, not too many details
A clear description of the project in a few lines
State the customer/End-user of the project
Roles and responsibilities of every member involved in the development of the project like project manager, project sponsor, and other members.
Schedule of the project; the start and end date of a project
Milestones of your project; it is vital to list all the milestones of your project and track all these.
Project resources; must include the help of your project.
Structure; structure of your project
Implementation plan; you should define an implementation plan for your project
Stakeholders: identify the stakeholder of your project
Risks and issues of your project