How Will We Put Our Plans Into Action? Project Charter The project charter includes the project justification, the major deliverables, and the project objectives. It forms the basis of future project decisions, including the decision of when the project or subproject is complete. The project charter is used to communicate with stakeholders and to allow scope management as the project moves forward. Part of the official project plan. 1
Project Charter Creation Process 1. Obtain problem statement What s wrong? Business case: Why do we care? 2. Identify principal stakeholders 3. Create a L1 or L2 process map 4. Select team 5. Train team 6. Select the team leader Copyright 2008 by Thomas Pyzdek Analysis of Costs & Benefits 2 Projects are chartered by senior leadership, generally the only group with the necessary authority to designate cross-functional responsibilities and allow access to interdepartmental resources. There are six steps in the chartering process: 1. OBTAIN A PROBLEM statement; WHAT S WRONG WITH the status quo? WHY DO WE care about this now? The project sponsor should ask senior leadership to put the problem statement and business case in writing. The problem statement should be specific enough to help the team identify the scope of the project and the major stakeholders. Problems of gargantuan proportions should be subdivided into smaller projects. 2. IDENTIFY THE PRINCIPAL stakeholders; 3. CREATE A MACRO flowchart of the process; 4. SELECTING THE TEAM members; 5. TRAIN THE TEAM in the basics of the Six Sigma approach and on the project; 6. SELECT THE TEAM leader. 2
Project Charter Form Header Items: 3 Labels (Including Introduction) Duration: 42 seconds Header Information 9 seconds General project information This section, which is shown at the top of the charter form, provides general information about the project itself.
Savings 13 seconds Roughly how much will this project save? A ballpark figure is OK at this point. You ll need to have this validated by a finance person sometime before the project is closed.
Saving type 20 seconds Hard or soft savings? The type of savings can be hard or soft. Hard savings will be directly reflected in budgets, cost estimates, or similar systems. Soft savings involve cost avoidance, such as accidents prevented or quality problems that won't occur as a result of the project.
Project Charter Form Project Details Items: 5 Labels (Including Introduction) Duration: 1 minutes 8 seconds Project Details 8 seconds Describe the project This section of the charter form presents information about the opportunity the project will address.
Opportunity 6 seconds What is the opportunity? Very briefly describe the opportunity in ordinary language.
Project Objectives 14 seconds What will things be like after your project is finished? The future state description should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant & time-bound. What will the future state look like and when should we expect to see it?
Business Case 20 seconds Tell why this project is urgently important Which of the organization's top-level goals does this project impact? This is where you describe the "burning platform" for your project. Describe why it is important to do the project immediately. What makes it urgent that this project be completed successfully? Why should the organization's leaders care about this project?
Approach 19 seconds What approach will be used for this project? It might be a "just do" project, or it might use a Six Sigma approach such as DMAIC. There are other approaches, including many that we won't discuss in this course.
Project Charter Form Metrics Items: 5 Labels (Including Introduction) Duration: 1 minutes 22 seconds Project Metrics 19 seconds Measurements operationally define your project's goals What specific metrics will improve? Roughly how much improvement do you expect to see as a result of your project? This section of the charter document will provide information on the low level metrics that will be addressed by the project, definitions of opportunity and defect, and estimates of your baseline and the amount of improvement your project will make.
Opportunity 19 seconds What presents the opportunity to make an error? What provides the opportunity to make an error or to create a defect? Examples: a customer service episode, a line of computer code, a form completed, a part manufactured, an IV placed in a patient.
Defect 17 seconds How is the term "defect" or "error" defined? What is an unacceptable measure of performance? For example: an unhappy customer, a 10 hold time exceeding 10 minutes, a line of computer code with an error, an infection, a defective item.
Metrics 10 seconds How are the opportunities and defects actually measured? You need to identify specific things that you will measure to operationalize the concepts of opportunity and defect.
Baseline & Goal 16 seconds What is the current level of the metric? What do you think the metric will be when your project is finished? At the time you create your charter you may not have precise measures of each metrics, but you should have a reasonable estimate of them. Enter the current and anticipated future levels for each metric on your list.
Project Charter Form Additional Information Items: 5 Labels (Including Introduction) Duration: 1 minutes 23 seconds Introduction 13 seconds Project scope Unintended consequences Project Timeline This section of the charter document provides additional information about the project, such as the process it addresses, areas it might effect, timelines, and so on.
Process Start/Stop 13 seconds What is the first step of the process? What is the last step of the process? Where does the process addressed by the project start and end? Since all processes are parts of larger systems, this information is needed to help avoid "scope creep."
Potential adverse impacts 15 seconds What might go wrong as a result of your project? How will you make sure that unintended consequences don't occur? What might be affected by this project other than the targeted metrics? What processes interact with the process changed by this project? What will you monitor for unintended adverse impacts?
Barriers/Support Required 20 seconds What likely obstacles will you encounter? Keep these in mind when working with your sponsor and forming your team What obstacles do you anticipate? For example, difficulty getting needed data, problems getting a supplier to cooperate. You and your sponsor will need to take steps to address these issues. For example, your team should include members who can help.
Timeline 22 seconds Timeline and milestones For Six Sigma projects the 5 milestones are tollgate reviews after each of these phases: 1. Define 2. Measure 3. Analyze 4. Improve 5. Control Your overall project completion date is often easier to estimate accurately if you break it down into smaller phases. Provide an educated guess of when you will complete each major phase of the project. With 6-sigma projects there are milestone reviews after each of the DMAIC phases.
Project charter form team info Items: 4 Labels (Including Introduction) Duration: 53 seconds Team 9 seconds Projects are undertaken by teams Who is on the team? Here's where you will show who's on your core team. These are your full-time team members who should attend all team meetings.
Core Team 15 seconds Core team members The charter form will show only the core team members. However, there will be other people who provide assistance along the way. You may wish to create a list of them, but they probably don't need to be in the charter.
Member Names 13 seconds Enter the names of your team members. List the names of your team members here. I recommend you do this in alphabetical order. If this is an electronic document you can also provide email links for each member.
Roles 15 seconds DACI roles filled by each member List the DACI roles that each team member fills. You may recall from another lesson that DACI is an acronym standing for the roles of Drivers, Approvers, Contributors, and Informed persons.