How to Write Agile Charter? -

The project charter is one of the first document produced for a project.

Without a clear Agile Charter, your sprint could become a marathon of confusion.

Agile charter is different than traditional project charter. Agile charter acknowledges that the scope may change and planning happens as project moves forward.

Therefor, rather than fully specifying scope, agile charter specifies a goal of a project. They emphasize on the processes and approaches team will use to iterate towards the final product.

In this article we will learn some practical tips to craft Agile Charter!

Agile versus Non-Agile Charter

The technique of chartering in Agile Projects has the same general goal as the chartering in traditional projects, but level of detail and assumptions are different.

The goal of project chartering in both these project management methodologies remains the same –

Describe the Project at High Level
Gain agreement about project’s W5H attributes: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How
Obtain authority to proceed

Since Agile methods are often used on projects where the technology or requirements are uncertain or a high level of change is expected,

Agile charters have less details than non-agile charters
agile charters are shorter in length. It should fit on a single sheet of paper
should focus on how a project would be run than on exactly what will be built

The agile projects are dynamic with moving target, so high degree of planning is inappropriate because key elements of project are likely to change. For such projects we need to allow mid-flight adjustments and make sure we have processes in place to allow us to make such adjustments effectively.

Agile charter emphasizes on how these adjustments would be made

Developing an Agile Charter

Agile charter results in flexible document that allows the team to respond to changing needs and technology and deliver high-value products.

Therefor, agile charters must document how changes are approved and prioritized into the backlog after approval.

The process of chartering helps align stakeholders with the project. One way stakeholders understand the high level vision of project is to have them jointly develop project elevator statement.

Elevator statements are short descriptions of a project goals, benefits that quickly describe the project or product. The following is a format for elevator statement

Example -Project Elevator Statement

The elevator statement on developing new training course for prospective project managers who want to learn Agile Tools and Techniques.

The final text of this elevator statement would read:

For project managers who want to know agile project management techniques, the “Fundamentals of Agile Projects” course is two day course that takes participants through agile development lifecycle, incorporating real case studies and hands on exercises.

Unlike agile courses from generic training organisations, we only use instructors with hands on agile project experience to ensure they can answer all your questions

What to Include in Agile Charter

The Agile charter will typically contain following basic information:

Who will be engaged?: A list of involved stakeholders
What is this project about?: A project elevator statement
When will it start and end? – The project start and target end date.
Why this project is undertaken?: A business rationale for the project
How will project undertaken?: A description of Agile approach with emphasis on how changes will be adopted in a project (such as use of product backlog, sprint planning etc.)
What are success metrics of a project?: Describe briefly a change this project would bring to the customer

Tips for Writing Agile Charter

The following are best practices for writing Agile Charter

Accessibility: Make your charter easily accessible for the entire team. Display it in team room for collocated team, or have it as a background on team portal for distributed teams

Clarity: Ensure that charter is easy to understand. Simple, direct, and non-technical language is essential for keeping all team members informed

Concise: Try to keep charter concise. Restrict it to a single page document.

Collaborate: Involve team members when designing your project charter. Charter must be owned by a team and not created by someone else

Project Tweet

This is a fun exercise that can help stakeholders to align around the project

This exercise requires stakeholders to describe the goal of the project in 280 characters or less. The intent of this exercise is to create high level understanding of project and its priorities

This exercise also helps in developing a charter

Summary

Agile charters have less detail than non-agile charters. Agile charters focus more on how a project would run than on exactly what will be built.

Project Elevator statement helps understand high level vision of the project. This can be one of the most important input for developing Agile charter.