Speaker 1 0:06
In today's episode of the predictive series, we'll be diving into the DEVELOP project charter process. It's the first step in the Initiating process group. It sets the foundation for the project, pretty much objectives. You'll cover boundaries and responsibilities. Think about the importance of the project charter. It's almost like if your your goal is to build a house with no blueprint. Um,
Unknown Speaker 0:35
how successful do you think you would
Speaker 1 0:38
be? I'm not saying you wouldn't be successful, but your chances of doing it, the chances of you understanding what you're trying to do and avoiding some of the pitfalls, it would be easier, a lot easier, if you had a project charter. So in today's episode, we'll cover what a project charter is and why it matters. We'll talk about the ittos, which are the inputs, tools, techniques and outputs of that process. We'll talk about how to create one that can truly set you up for success. And I'll provide a real world example where a project charter is need, needed is necessary, and how it could be beneficial to an organization. So what is a project charter? It is a document that formally authorizes a project or a phase that's important to those who are in project management, but it's also it is developed, typically by sponsors or an initiator, depends on how the organization labels their decision makers and those leaders in the organization. But it also provides a clear picture of the project's purpose to yourself, to the stakeholders, and then it also kind of highlights the constraints of the project, the most important part of that too. For those who are project managers, right, it formally authorizes you to begin work. You know, that's one of the most important things about the project charter. Is like, okay, hey, you have the clearance to begin work for this project. So that is what is necessary in organizations to be able to even begin the work on it. They don't just start by saying, hey, we want to make money. We want to do something with this, and we're just going to start doing work. No, you have to create a project charter. It has to be decided on by some governing body of that organization, and then they'll assign and authorize a project manager to go ahead and do that work. So couple key points on that it it will establish a shared understanding across the organization for that particular project, the boundaries within it are designed to help prevent something called scope creep. And for those who are not privy to the language, Scope Creep is when you are doing work that is not a part of what's in scope. So let's just say, if my job is to build a house, my job is to build the house. That's a part of the project. Scope is not to build the shed as well. Is not to build the playground as well, because what was in scope was building the house. So that's important, as you could think about large organizations, the way that they may do things, you gotta be detailed in that regard. So make sure you set clear boundaries in it to prevent scope creep. And I'll say honestly, the last thing is, you gotta think that it aligns everyone with, like the strategy and the goals of the organization. So if the goal is to make more money or reduce cost, and this project is going to do one or the other, once it's formalized, right? Got the project charter? Hey, we're starting this. This has to align with what the whole goal is for the overall organization, and that's why the project charter is very important to the organization as a whole. Now we're going to dive into the ittos again, inputs, tools and techniques, and then you have your output. So think of it like, Hey, this is the inputs. Are what go into the tools and techniques, and then through that process, you spit out an output. Um, so let's just start from the input side. Typically there's two inputs, well, there's there's a lot more, but, um, typically there's inputs that you gotta consider before we even look at a project. As far as taking it on, you gotta measure the feasibility and what the benefits are. Usually you gather your business documents, and then you think about like the business case, like, why are we doing this? So business documents are the things that fuel the business case. And then, based on other factors, you would consider. Hey, does this project make us money? Will this project reduce our cost? Will it increase our efficiencies? You start having those conversations amongst key stakeholders, then they start to come together, like, Hey, here's an idea, here's a project that we can undertake that will achieve these results. So that's kind of the start of Project Charter from the inputs perspective, there's a couple other things that go into that typically you look for agreements. So are there contracts or any type of agreements that we have to abide by or adhere to legally within the company? So you could think of multiple examples. If you're in manufacturing, you want to launch a new product, but has your product met its legal requirements? If you're in the food and beverage industry, or if you're in something with patents and trademarks, things like that, you got to just make sure the legal aspects are covered as well before embarking upon that. Then there's something called Enterprise environmental factors and organizational process assets. There's typically companies provide these templates, if they are if they manage their own projects internally. So it's something to look more into. We will talk more about eefs and OPAS in a later segment. So if you do have questions on that after hearing this, please reach out to me, and we can have a discussion on it, but we will have content for that, because each one of those require its own time to discuss. So tools and techniques. There's not many. There's three in this particular process. One of the tools and techniques is called expert judgment. One is facilitation techniques and any other data gathering. So when you look at expert judgment, it's leveraging the knowledge and the expertise of the stakeholders within the organization. Sometimes you bring in other outside people to provide their expert opinion, but expert judgment is just one that's typically organic to the organization. Facilitation techniques basically means brainstorming sessions to help define scope and objectives. So you may do a open forum. You may have stakeholders who are in different locations, so you have to come up with ways to collect that information while at the same time not losing the essence of what what you're trying to do, which is gather boundaries. Hey, gather those, those objectives. Hey, what are the things that we may run into that may cause us issues? And you gotta have those conversations regardless of location. So that's what facilitation techniques kind of talks about. And then data gathering, spending time with your stakeholders. Are you doing interviews? Are you looking at critical information? Are you looking at unstructured or structured data to come up with that information and think about again like this is a process, right? So within gathering those inputs and leveraging all of this information, tools and techniques, it's all coming together, and the output of that is a project charter. You know, you'll have the project objectives, you'll have the high level requirements that this project must have, you will understand these key stakeholders have this role within this particular project, and then you'll have at a high, high level, maybe a budget, maybe a schedule of what you need to cover. So those are the things to think about when it's not just as easy as saying, Hey, I'm gonna build a house with three bed, four bath, or whatever your dimensions are. You really have to talk about like, Hey, who's involved? Who's gonna be living here? I'm just giving an example, vague example. We'll talk about a real example here in a second. But think about all these things. For those who are a project manager to drive that importance of the charter, but even those who are not, it's still important to drive these conversations, whether your partner doesn't want to talk about it or not, like they have a route, a relevant value in that conversation, because they are what we call the stakeholder. So anybody that's affected by the project is a stakeholder. You just have to work with them to let them know that their voice, their values and their perspective is critical to the development of this.
Unknown Speaker 9:31
All right, so let's talk
Unknown Speaker 9:33
real world scenario,
Speaker 1 9:36
and it depending on the viewer. Right like it may not be as relevant, but I'm trying to just give you a scenario that does bring about the importance of it. So just just imagine your company launching a project to just kind of modernize its infrastructure so they have a dated system, little bit antiquated, and you want to kind of bring it up to you. Uh, 2025, standards, or just faster than what it is, because it's creating other issues. So a product, the chart, the project charter that was developed, outlines the expected benefits that the stakeholders and the organization wants to achieve, which is reduced downtime, so increasing their efficiencies, and then an enhanced system security, so probably making it a stronger system, so that it doesn't have, you know, issues with cyber security, or also, you know, servers going down and then now you have to You're losing business hours of working because the system has to be rebooted or repaired. So during execution of this particular project. Like every decision, from a resource allocation perspective to risk management, is guided by this charter, right, the budget, expected schedule, when we want it done by the parties involved and who's going to be running the show, the project manager. Like all this is generated by that charter. You know this, and this ultimately provides clarity, and in most cases, it helps a project finish either, you know, ahead of schedule, then budget. And you know that's the goal of every project, is that if when it's successfully done is done under budget and ahead of schedule, all right, so today we, again, we talked about the DEVELOP project charter process. Um, lot of information, jam packed, does it? This isn't and designed to be a long winded podcast to give you this content supposed to be rapid fire, um, but it's the starting point of every project. It defines what the project will achieve and why it's undertaken, simple as that, it ensures the like, pretty much alignment between the organization's goals and the stakeholder expectations, or your house goals and you and your spouse's expectations, however you want to look at it, that's pretty much why you want to do it. Now here's a bit of advice. Involving the right stakeholders is key, and early, it can derail if you get a key stakeholder who has a powerful voice late in the Develop process, and then you may have to backtrack and redo and re gather information, so make sure you get the right people involved early. Keep it concise but comprehensive. Sometimes they can be a little bit detailed. If you you're a detailed person like me, try to work on being concise and not making the project charter the same length of a project management plan. But you want to look at it. You want to look at it frequently, just to make sure you stay in align with the goals. That can kind of happen depending on how large a proper project it is. You may be so focused on the work that you don't come back to make sure you're not going above and beyond, outside of what is being asked. So those are the things to keep in mind. And then now it's on you, right? So when you have your next project. Start with that project charter. You know, if you have questions, definitely reach us. Reach out to us. Project management podcast. Let's get a conversation going. If you want to share your experiences, feel free to reach out and let's keep the conversation going. So I appreciate you for taking the time to check us out. We're this predictive series will cover all 49 processes within the predictive or waterfowl waterfall process, which is traditional project management. After that, we will be doing the Agile series. So let's keep the conversation going. Talk to you later. You
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
