005: Tools and Techniques for Developing the Project Charter

Now, let’s evaluate the inputs from the previous lesson and understand the integration with the project charter, using the following tools and techniques: -expert judgement, brainstorming/interviews, facilitation, and meetings.  

In project initiation, you are planning the project at a high -level to determine the business case-whether the project is feasible or not, given the assumptions and constraints. You will meet with key stakeholders to define high-level objectives, requirements, scope, schedule, costs, risk, resources. assumptions, constraints, milestones, as identified in the project charter to confirm the project justification, as defined in the business case. The project manager may create the project charter, but it is signed off by the sponsor during project initiating. This is typical in the predictive/waterfall approach.

 In the agile/adaptive or hybrid approaches, the project charter may contain less level of details about the product requirements because of the dynamic characteristics of the project. While the level of details may change, the basics purpose and benefits of the project charter remain the same, such as the need for assumptions and constraints.  The typical project charter Project Charter - KC .docx  does not represent a project charter template but should be tailored based on the development approach and business environment.

There are some misconceptions about creating a project charter in the agile/adaptive environments because project charters originated in the traditional waterfall method. However, from a product integration standpoint, it is a key document that is very useful for agile teams. This is because it helps to align the stakeholder expectations with the results- project team team’s understanding to deliver towards their expectations. Agile project charters can contain many types of information, but the main purpose is to provide clarity so that both the technical and business resources clearly understand the project work. This will result in greater alignments across the organization.

Create project charter begins with a collaborative kickoff meeting with the entire team. This should include the: executive sponsor, product owner or service manager, project manager, and a designated team lead along with as many known members of the strategy, and development teams. This kickoff meeting should accomplish the following high-level goals: goal, purpose, approach and provides authorization for the project to proceed. The agile project charter needs to be at a high level and acknowledge that project scope will change.

Kickoff Meeting - Project teams may have one or several project kickoff meetings. These meetings seek to establish project context, assist in team formation, and ensure proper alignment to the overall project vision. Activities during kickoff meetings may include:

• Defining a vision statement

• Defining a team charter

• Assisting the customer/Product Owner with user story writing, estimation of effort,

prioritization planning, and production of an initial product backlog.

Establishing other initial start-up activities that will be required, often called Sprint 0. These may include team onboarding, credentialing, establishing environments and supporting communications tools, and several other activities that ensure the teams are in place and ready to work on iteration objectives.

 Some of the tools and techniques that can be used during project Initiating process include:    

 Expert Judgement- Your organization might need to talk to subject matter experts from different departments to determine the rationalization of the project. Your organization may depend on outside consultants’ subject area experts to inform you on how other organizations have solved the same problem – These different opinions of subject matter experts are Expert Judgements.  You can use these subject matter experts to:

o  Establish the appropriate organizational strategy and execution plan for the project

o  Define the benefits management plan

o  Schedule and Costs Estimating

o  Identify and define the risk

o  Technical knowledge of the industry and focus areas of the project   

Facilitation and meetings- When you gather to write your project charter, you need to get a clear, complete, and consistent understanding of your stakeholders’ expectations and demands on what the project team will deliver. You might set up meetings with your stakeholders to brainstorm project goals or resolve conflicts on how your project should run. The methods you take to get everyone on a same level of understanding are called facilitation techniques.  Kickoff meetings and other start-up meetings are useful way of assembling the necessary team members and stakeholders to effectively gather relevant and useful information in creating the project charter.

Brainstorming/Interviews- You might set up meetings with your stakeholders to brainstorm your project requirements and you may interview various stakeholders to understand their needs or expectations. In some cases, you may use focus groups to clarify the requirements.   

Expert judgment:  - Your organization might need to talk to subject matter experts from different departments or external consultants to adjust the processes to meet the specific needs of a project. You can use the expert judgment from subject matter experts to:

 ·        Determine the appropriate methodology approach (predictive, adaptive, etc.) for this project.

·        Customize the process to meet specific project needs.

·        Develop technical and management details that will be used within the project management plan.

·        Determine the resources and skills needed for project work.

·        Define the level of configuration management needed to apply to a project.

·        Identify the project documents that will be subject to a formal change control process.

·        Prioritize the work on the project to ensure resources (labour and physical) are allocated to the appropriate work at the appropriate time.

Facilitation – When you are developing your project management plan, you might set up meetings with your stakeholders and project team members and use techniques such as brainstorming, conflict resolution, problem solving, and meeting management, which are examples of key techniques used by facilitators to help teams and individuals accomplish project activities and develop the integrated project management plan.

Data gathering: - When you are gathering data from the subsidiary plans for consolidation into the integrated project plan, you might interview the project stakeholders and project team members, facilitate brainstorming sessions with focus groups, and use checklists to ensure the data obtained is relevant and accurate.

Interpersonal and team skills: - When you are developing a plan with consultation from stakeholders and team members that describes what you are going to do in executing, monitoring, and controlling, and closing your project, there will be many issues and conflicts you need to resolve to gain group consensus. You may need to apply interpersonal and team skills to resolve issues, brainstorm ideas, enable problem solving, and manage conflicts that may arise over the course of a project. These soft skills can be used by any project team member to assist other team members.

Meetings: - Meetings are a useful way of assembling the necessary team members and stakeholders to effectively gather relevant and useful information.