Does your team have a project charter so they know what to do for this project? I see too many teams try to start work without one. That leads to feature factories, apparently random work that does not add value, or worse, a product that's partly done in too many areas.
Teams start without project charters because they think the charter will take “too long” to finish. However, teams can create a project charter in less than two hours. (Often, just one hour.) That's a tradeoff of small up-front time to help everyone understand how to make decisions and tradeoffs, to achieve the desired outcomes.
Here are the pieces of a project charter:
- The product vision: What problems will this release solve for the customers?
- The project driver, boundaries, and constraints.
- The product risks, which explain how to choose the right feedback loops (lifecycle or agile approach) for this project.
- Release criteria, to know what done means.
There's one more caveat to creating a useful charter in a short time: the team's working agreements. If your team does not yet have working agreements, see Create Your Successful Agile Project for much more information. (Also, let me know if you want me to do some posts on working agreements.)
The project charter specifically addresses how the team can collaborate with their partners across the organization: the people we call “stakeholders,” the people who interact with customers, and anyone involved in releasing, including the customers.
I'll address each of those in this series of posts, so you can see how to create a useful charter in less time than you think.
The Project Charter Series
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The Project Charter Series
- How to Create a Useful Project Charter in Less Time Than You Think: Overview
- Project Charter Part 1: Write (And Test) a Product Vision for This Project
- Project Charter Part 2: Clarify the Project Driver, Boundaries, and Constraints for This Project
- Project Charter Part 3: How Product Risks Can Support or Change Your Feedback Loop Choices
- Project Charter Part 4: Define Release Criteria so You Know What Done Means & Avoid Scope Creep
- Project Charter Part 5: Workshop the Project Charter with the Right People to Manage Everyone's Time
See my books: Manage It! and Create Your Successful Agile Project for what I already wrote about project charters.
Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility will help you see your feedback loop needs. And help you decide how to instill more agility in any approach if you want to.