9 Steps to Effectively Creating Project Charters

A project charter is a document that describes, authorizes, and defines any given process improvement initiative. It is widely used within the project management community as well as within the quality management field, often for Six Sigma implementation programs. Project charters can be of great value when someone needs information about the project, at review meetings, and to formally address changes needed to the scope and/or objectives of the project - needless to say, a great and necessary tool for quality practitioners seeking documentation and formalization of the project's detailed information. But how do we go about creating a project charter that is rich in information and easy to be used throughout the duration of the initiative? In this post, we offer 9 steps to creating an effective project charter. These steps should cover the basics of any process improvement initiative, however the list below is not by any means all inclusive. The quality professional will certainly need other pertinent information depending on specific requirements such as legislation, market conditions, sine qua non conditions within a contract and so on.

1. Sponsor/champion: who is sponsoring this project? Will he/she be available for conflict resolution and to act as the spokesperson at the leadership level? The sponsor should be involved from the very beginning, i.e. the sponsor should help the team to write the project charter.

2. Project title: what will the team call this project and will it be easily thought of as the initiative it truly represents?   

3. Business case: questions related to this field should sound like: "why are we doing this?", "how does this project relate to our organization's strategy?", and "what is the impact on our various stakeholders once this initiative has been successfully completed?". In a world where ROI (Return On Investment) is used as justification for basically everything, it is vital that your project charter is crystal clear about the business case it supports.

4. Scope: what are the boundaries of the business opportunity? What are the team's responsibilities and liabilities? What is not within the defined scope? Which parts of the process are included and which ones are not? Where does the process start and end? Having a clear scope description helps the team and the organization to avoid frustration on non-expected outcomes.

5. Goals: the old SMART way of setting your goals is still valid. SMART goals will provide the team with specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely metrics. Ideally, these metrics would be mathematically linked to the organization's strategic objectives (check our post on KPIs deployment - September, 2013: 

Ten Steps to the Proper Set Up of KPIs

6. Problem statement: the problem statement might not be the most accurate one at first, but that's OK. It is only after some data collection and validation that the project team will surely address the issue at its root level, based on facts and data. However, organizations often have known problems that need to be addressed through improvement initiatives. One way or the other, a clearly defined problem statement will help the team to focus on the task at hand.

7. Start/end dates and milestones: when does the project start and when does it end? And when should we expect to achieve the expected milestones? Here we emphasize the importance of celebrating these milestones' achievements - this will energize the team and the organization to move forward.

8. People involved: a solid improvement process project should have, at a minimum, a project sponsor, a project manager/leader, a scribe, facilitators, and team members. More sophisticated projects may also have a formal steering committee and the involvement of external stakeholders such as the community or a local legislator.

9. Signature and dates to help with formalization and accountability.

eZsigma's professionals constantly use project charters for the planning and deployment of improvement process initiatives. We are Canada's leading firm in the consulting, training, and certification of Lean and Six Sigma. Contact us to discuss your organization's needs.

Force Field Analysis in 3 Steps

Making a decision about a major undertaking such as the implementation of a Six Sigma program is not an insignificant task. As we all know, the on-boarding of a process excellence initiative may affect the lives of many employees not to mention the possible change in various processes within the organization. The Force Field Analysis was developed in the 40's by Kurt Lewin (a social psychologist). It is a practical and useful tool that you can use to help your organization in the decision-making process of any major change brought by new initiatives. This simple and yet powerful quality tool can provide the practitioner with a visual assessment of the forces that are against or in favour of the initiative being implemented. It also gives the quality professional a pictorial representation of the factors that need to be minimized (restraining forces) and the ones that can be used as leverage (driving forces).

How to Build a Force Field Analysis Diagram in 3 Steps

Step 1. Start by stating in the middle of a flip chart or a sheet of paper what it is that the organization (or department) is about to embark on. This can be a simple Kaizen rapid improvement event or a year-long Lean Six Sigma on-boarding program.

Step 2. On the left side of the central statement, list all factors that may contribute to roadblocks, issues, or even failure in the initiative. The Force Field Analysis diagram should be built through a brainstorming session which it means that, all ideas and insights are welcomed at this point. For a Six Sigma implementation approach, restraining forces could be employees' resistance, cost of remodeling a new process, and lack of inside expertise to name a few.

Step 3. On the right side of the central topic being studied, list all factors that may contribute to the success of the initiative. These include, but are not limited, to savings in time and cost, higher customer retention rate, improved product quality, fewer recall events, and industry recognition in process excellence. As in item 2 above, all ideas related to the success of the central initiative are welcomed at this point.

Some authors suggest the inclusion of a weighing system applied to these forces. For example, are there restraining forces that affect the program being implemented more than others? A simple scale from 1 to 5 (weak to strong) can be used. Once the diagram has been completed, the organization should start working on the minimization (or elimination) of the various restraining forces and on the strengthening of the driving forces. The Force Field Analysis will ultimately provide the user with even a decision on whether or not to go ahead with the program/change/initiative. On one hand, you may find that there are just too many restraining forces to tackle. On the other hand, you may find that the program being considered can be implemented with a great deal of driving forces that will make the entire process a lot easier than expected. One way or the other, the tool can be used to help you in making a better decision.

eZsigma Group is Canada's leader in process excellence. Through the deployment of Lean, Six Sigma, and Strategic Management consulting and education, we have helped hundreds of businesses to improve their processes and be a better organization. Contact us should you have any questions on how we can help your organization to be a better one.