Important Project Documents

Project Charter

Project charter as depicted in PMBOK (2008), is a document issued by the project initiator or sponsor that formally authorizes the existence of a project, and provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities.

However, in certain case, the project manager is involved in developing the project charter, this is when the project roles are applied before the initiation of the project. In this case, the development of the project charter falls in to the area of Project Integration Management.

Phases of Project Initiation 

Figure 18 : Phases of Project Initiation

For the initiation the project, the idea of the project, strategies, plans, feasibility studies are inputs and the outputs would be goal statement, terms of reference and deliverable list. and at the end of the four phases, the project charter is developed.

As stated by Schwalbe (2006), project charter is a short document which formally recognizes the existence of a project and it provides a summary of project's objectives and  management. The contents of the project charter depend on the type and the nature of the project.

A typical project charter, as listed by Schwalbe (2006), is as follows;

• Project Title 
• Project Start and End Date
• The key Objectives
• Scope Statement
• Deliverable
• Roles and responsibilities
• Completion criteria
• Approach
• Risks and Benefits
• Assumptions and Limitations
• Dependencies

A template of a sample project charter is as below;

Figure 18 : Project Charter Template (  Source : http://www.swiftlightsoftware.com/project-charter/project-charter.html )

Project Scope Statement

The project scope document, states what is to be accomplished and what is the deliverable of the project. As stated by Schwalbe (2006) good scope definition is critical to the success of a project as it helps to improve the accuracy of time, cost and resource estimates, and defines a baseline for performance measurement and project control.

A scope document contains details such as the product characteristics and requirements, summarizes the deliverables, and describes project success criteria.

Any uncontrolled changes or continuous growth in a project scope is referred to as the "project creep" and giving customer something that was not asked for, something that was not in the scope and often something that the customer may not really need is referred to as " Gold-Plating". This is often happened in software development and even though the customer can be delighted, gold-plating would consume time and cost which should have been saved for the requirements of the project which are within the scope.

Work Breakdown Structure

The WBS, is created within the Project Scope Management knowledge area. Haugan (2002), states that WBS is an outline of the work, where the work is the sum of many activities that make up a project. It is further elaborated that WBS can be developed in a four-step process as listed below;

1. Specifying the project objectives and focusing on the products, services or results to be provided to the customer.
2. Identifying specifically the products, services or results (deliverables or end items) to be provided to the customer.
3. Identifying the work areas in the project to make sure that 100% of the work is covered to identify areas that cut across the deliverables, represent intermediate outputs or complement the deliverables.
4. Subdividing each of the items in step 2 and 3 into successive, logical sub categories until the complexity and money value of elements.

As explained the configuration and the content of the WBS and  the specific work packages vary from one project to another depending on the size and complexity of the project, on the organizational structure, phase of the project, degree  of uncertainty and risk involved and the time available for planning.

Two approaches that can be adopted in developing a WBS are;

1. Top down Approach (High-Level WBS) - The development of the WBS would be faster as the project manager understands the tasks, breaks it in to manageable components and assign resources based on his understanding. Even though this is fast, it is not accurate, as the Project manager can either refer to past data or can assume in assigning. The easiest way to identify this approach is the breakdown on work is written as "nouns"
2. Bottom up Approach (Low-Level WBS) - The WBS is developed by the project team where every member's ideas are taken in. The process of the development is time consuming however results in an accurate outcome at the end. Unlike the top down approach, this approach describes the tasks using "verbs".

Some of the tools and techniques that can be used in developing a WBS are;

• Mind mapping (decomposition of the work in to work packages or deliverables or activities and assigning  resources to them.)

The project can be broken down in to manageable components, when the components reach its level where it cannot be further broke down, the component becomes a "work Package" or an "activity", this is where the resource allocation is done for. Below diagram illustrates a decomposed diagram for a project.

Figure 19 : Decomposed Diagram of a Project

The rules to remember in decomposing a project would be;

1. Eliminate element sharing
2. 100% coverage of work
3. Mutually Exclusive
4. Work should clearly define the scope through the WBS dictionary

• Brain Storming
• SCAMPER - The tool that is for brain storming, ID generation. SCAMPER is a mnemonic that stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate and Reverse.

References 

Haugan, G.T., 2002. Effective Work Breakdown Structures. Management Concepts Inc.

PMBOK, 2008. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. 4th ed. Newtown Square: Project Management Institute, Inc

Schwalbe, K., 2006. Introduction to Project Management. Bob Woodbury.