Note: The assessments in this course build upon each other, so you are strongly encouraged to complete them in sequence.

Project Charter and Preliminary Scope Statement

Once the project is selected and the business case analysis determines there is sufficient information to initiate a project, a project charter is created. It includes the following:

• Project description.
• General project management approach.
• List of stakeholder names.

This document will be referenced during the life cycle of the project. The approval of the charter serves as a formal authorization to expend resources for the project. The project charter will serve as the principal resource for developing the preliminary scope statement. This document establishes the boundaries for the project.

Once the project charter has been approved and the preliminary scope statement has been produced, the project initiation process is complete. These two documents are now used to create a project management plan.

Part A: Project Charter

Refer to the PMBOK® Guide, the Capella library, the Internet, or other resources to develop a charter and scope statement for the project you selected in Assessment 1. The charter must include the following as a minimum:

• Project requirements
• The business need.
• Project purpose.
• Project milestones.
• Project stakeholders.
• Affected functional organizations.
• Assumptions.
• Constraints.
• A business case.
• A high-level budget (expanded from your business case).

Part B: Scope Statement

Information from the project charter is included in the preliminary scope statement. This statement establishes the boundaries for the project, identifying what is included and what is excluded. It is written after the project charter, and should contain any information discovered since the project charter was approved.

Develop, complete, and submit your preliminary scope statement. You may use this Project Charter Template [DOC] Download Project Charter Template [DOC]if you wish. This component must include:

• Project and product objectives.
• Product or service requirements.
• Product acceptance criteria.
• Project boundaries.
• Project requirements and deliverables.
• Project assumptions.
• Project constraints.
• Initial project organization.
• Initial risk assessment.
• Scheduled milestones.
• High-level work breakdown structure (WBS).
• Order of magnitude cost estimate.
• Project configuration management requirements.
• Approval requirements.