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The Project Charter describes the project vision, objectives, scope, organization and implementation plan. It helps you to set the direction for the project and gain buy in from your stakeholders as to how the project will be organized and implemented. It will also help you to control the scope of your project, by defining exactly what it is that you have to achieve. To define a Project Charter, take these steps:

Step 1: Identify the Project Vision

Vision: The first step taken when defining a Project Charter is to identify the project vision. The vision encapsulates the purpose of the project and is the defined end goal for the project team.

Objectives: Then based on the vision, list three to five objectives to be achieved by the project. Each objective should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound (SMART).

Scope: With a clear view of the Vision and Objectives of the project, it’s time to define the project scope. The scope defines the formal boundaries of the project by describing how the business will be changed or altered by the project delivery. Deliverables: Then you need to describe each of the deliverables that the project will produce.

Step 2: Describe the Project Organization

The next step is to identify how the project will be structured by listing the customers, stakeholders, roles, responsibilities and reporting lines.

Customers: First, identify the project customers. A customer is a person or entity that is responsible for accepting the deliverables when the project is complete.

Stakeholders: Then identify the project stakeholders. A stakeholder is a person or entity within or outside of the project with a specific key interest or stake in the project. For example, a Financial Controller will be interested in the cost of the project, and a CEO will be interested in whether the project helps to achieve the company vision.

Roles: Now list the key roles involved in delivering the project. Examples of roles include the Project Sponsor, Project Board and Project Manager. Then summarize each of the primary responsibilities of each role identified.

Structure: Once you have a clear view of the roles needed to undertake the project, you can depict the reporting lines between those roles within a Project Organization Chart.

Step 3: Plan the Approach to Implementation

You now have a solid definition of what the project needs to achieve and how it will be organized to achieve it. The next step is to describe the implementation approach as follows:

Implementation Plan: To provide the Customer and Stakeholders with confidence that the project implementation has been well thought through, create an Implementation Plan listing the phases, activities and timeframes involved in undertaking the project.

Milestones: In addition, list any important milestones and describe why they are critical to the project. A milestone is typically an important project event, such as the achievement of a key deliverable.

Dependencies: List any key dependencies and their criticality to the project. A dependency is defined as an activity that is likely to impact on the project during its life cycle.

Resource Plan: Create a plan which summarizes the resources involved in undertaking the project by listing the labor, equipment and materials needed. Then budget the financial resources needed.

Step 4: List the Risks and Issues

The final step taken to complete your Project Charter is to identify any project risks, issues, assumptions and constraints related to the project.

And that’s it. If you complete each of the steps above, then you will create a solid Project Charter for your project, helping you to manage scope and deliver consistently on time and within budget.

Download a Project Charter template to save you time and effort.

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Project Scope is everything that must be produced to complete a project. These ‘things’ are called deliverables and you need to describe them in depth as early in the project as possible, so everyone knows what needs to be produced. Take these 5 Steps to scope your projects:

Step 1: Set the Direction
Start off by setting the direction for the project. Do you have an agreed Project Vision, Objectives and Timeframes? Are they specified in depth and has your customer agreed to them? Does everyone in the project team truly understand them and why they are important? Only by fixing the project direction can you truly fix the project scope.

Step 2: Scope Workshops
The best way to get buy-in to your project scope is to get all of the relevant stakeholders to help you define it. So get your project sponsor, customer and other stakeholders in a room and run a workshop to identify the scope. What you want from them is an agreed set of major deliverables to be produced by the project. You also want to know “what’s out of scope”.

Run the workshop by asking each stakeholder for a list of the deliverables they expect the project team to deliver. Take the full list of deliverables generated in the workshop and get them to agree on what’s mandatory and what’s optional. Then ask them to prioritize the list, so you know what has to be delivered first.

Step 3: Fleshing it out
You now have an agreed list of deliverables. But it’s still not enough. You need to define each deliverable in depth. Work with the relevant people in your business to describe how each deliverable will look and feel, how it would operate and how it would be supported etc. Your goal here is to make it so specific that your customer cannot state later in the project that “when they said this, they really meant that”.

Step 4: Assessing Feasibility
So you now have a detailed list and description of every deliverable to be produced by your project, in priority order and separated as mandatory / optional. Great! But is it feasible to achieve within the project end date? Before you confirm the scope, you need to review every deliverable in the list and get a general indication from your team as to whether they can all be completed before your project end date. If they can’t, then which deliverables can you remove from the list to make your end date more achievable?

Step 5: Get the thumbs up
Present the prioritized set of deliverables to your Project Sponsor and ask them to approve the list as your project scope. Ask them to agree to the priorities, the deliverable descriptions and the items out of scope.

By getting formal sign-off, you’re in a great position to be able to manage the project scope down the track. So when your Sponsor says to you in a few weeks time “Can you please add these deliverables to the list?”, you can respond by saying “Yes, but I’ll either have to remove some items from the list to do it, or extend the project end date. Which is it to be?”. You can easily manage your Sponsors expectations with a detailed scope document at your side.

The scope document is the Project Manager’s armor. It protects them from changes and makes them feel invincible!

And there you have it - 5 steps to defining the scope for your project. If you want document templates to help you define and manage scope for your project, then download the Project Management Kit today.

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The purpose of a Business Case is to justify the project expenditure by identifying the business benefits you’re going to deliver. Here’s how to create a Business Case in 4 simple steps:

Step 1: Identify the Business Problem

Usually, projects are undertaken to solve a particular business problem or opportunity. So you need to investigate that business problem or opportunity and describe what it is, how it’s come about and the timeframes in which it needs to be addressed.

Only with this knowledge, will you truly understand the purpose of the project and the timeframes for delivery. Without this knowledge, it’s like building a house without a solid foundation.

Step 2: Identify the Alternative Solutions

Now that you understand the business problem/opportunity in depth, it’s time to identify a solution to address it. To ensure that you choose the right solution, take these steps:

• Identify the alternative solutions
• Quantify the benefits of implementing each solution
• Forecast the costs of implementing each solution
• Assess the feasibility of implementing each solution
• Identify the risks and issues associated with each solution
• Document all of this, in your Business Case

Step 3: Recommend a Preferred Solution

Before you rank the solutions, set out the criteria for ranking them and choose a scoring mechanism as well. For instance, you may decide to:

• score each solution from 1-10, based on their costs and benefits
• weight each based on criteria which are important to you
• use a more complicated scoring mechanism

Then go ahead and score your solutions to identify the best solution. Make sure you document the entire process in your Business Case.

Step 4: Describe the Implementation Approach

By now, you have selected a solution and you have confirmed its benefits and costs. The next step is to convince your Project Sponsors that you have thought through the approach for implementing it. So document the steps you’re going to take to build the solution for your client. Remember, only with a clearly defined Business Case will you ensure you deliver the business benefits expected by your customer.

Documenting the Business Case is one of the most critical steps in the Project Life Cycle. If you want templates to help you do this as well as all of the other steps in the Project Life Cycle, then download the Project Management Kit today.

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Brilliant Project Management: What the Best Project Managers Know, Do and Say was released on 15 January 2009.

You can order your copy for just £6.59 (40% off the RRP) by following this link.

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Computer Weekly reports that an internal NHS document states that problems arising from the implementation of the Care Records Service at the A&E department of the Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead, could continue indefinitely.

According to the report “Lessons Learnt from the Royal Free Hospital Emergency Department” is a detailed assessment of the Care Records Service implementation which refers to multiple problems and highlights the risk that “the present situtation will continue indefinitely”.

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According to Computer Weekly negotiations between NHS Connecting for Health and CSC over revisions to £3bn worth of contracts under the NHS’s National Programme for IT are expected to be concluded in the next two weeks.

The talks over a contract “re-set” had been expected to be concluded by May this year. Talks over a contract re-set with Fujitsu broke down in May 2008 with the result that NHS Connecting for Health terminated the supplier’s contract.

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The Project Challenge Expo is the biggest event of the year for organisations working with Projects, Programmes, Processes and Resources.

Attendees will have the opportunity for face to face meetings with around 80 exhibiting organisations, plus the chance to choose from 42 excellent high quality seminar presentations delivered from open zones within the exhibition hall.

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Hot on the heels of Fujitsu’s £700m compensation claim from the NHS comes news that the government could demand Fujitsu pay £500m following the supplier’s withdrawal from the NPfIT.

Source: Computerworld

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The Chief Executive of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust has warned that claims for compensation because of problems with the National Programme for IT [NPfIT] may fail because the contract is between the Secretary of State and Local Service Providers such as BT and CSC.

Source: Computer Weekly

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According to Computer Weekly the Conservatives have commissioned a British Computer Society board member to head an independent review of NHS IT.

The review chairman, Glyn Hayes, said the excercise will inform Conservative policy on the future of use of IT in the NHS but will not assess current problems with NPfIT.

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