The project charter and baseline project plan provide a project governance framework for carrying out or executing the IT project. More specifically, the project charter serves as an agreement or contract between the project sponsor and project team—documenting the project’s MOV, defining its infrastructure, summarizing the project plan details, defining roles and responsibilities, showing projectcommitments, and explaining project control mechanisms.

• Documenting the project’s MOV

Although the project’s MOV was included in the business case, it is important that the MOV be clearly defined and agreed upon before developingor executing the project plan. At this point, the MOV mustbe cast in stone. Onceagreed upon, the MOV for a project should not change. As you will see, the MOV drives the project planning process and is fundamental for all project-related decisions.

• Defining the project infrastructure

The project charter defines all of the people, resources, technology, methods, project management processes, and knowledge areas that are required to support the project. In short, the project charter will detail everything needed to carry out the project. Moreover, this infrastructure must not only be in place, but must also be taken into account when developing the project plan.

• Summarizing the details of the project plan

The project charter should summarize the scope, schedule, budget, quality objectives, deliverables, and milestones of the project. It should serve as an important communication tool that provides aconsolidated source of information about the project that can be referenced throughout the project life cycle.

• Defining roles and responsibilities

The project charter should not only identify the project sponsor, project manager, and project team, but also when and how they will be involved throughout the project life cycle. In addition, the project charter should specify the lines of reporting and who will be responsible for specific decisions.

• Showing explicit commitment to the project

In addition to defining the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders, the project charter should detail theresources to be provided by the projectsponsor andspecify clearly who will take ownership ofthe project’s product once the project is completed. Approval of the project charter gives the project team the formal authority to begin work on the project.

• Setting out project control mechanisms

Changes to the project’s scope, schedule, and budget will undoubtedly be required over the course of the project. But, the project manager can lose control and the project team can lose its focus if these changes are not managed properly. Therefore, the project charter should outline a process for requesting and responding to proposed changes.