A project charter is a document that contains the basic elements (i.e., business case, problem statement, and scope) of the improvement project and answers the following questions:
1. The business case describes what the project does, how it impacts the strategic business objectives, is used as a motivational tool that describes why the project is worth doing, and it explains the consequences of not doing the project.
2. The problem statement is specific and measurable (quantifiable). It is an indication of how long the problem has existed, describes the impact to the organization, and describes the gap between the current state and the desired state.
3. The scope defines what the team is going to focus their process improvement efforts on, and it will identify those things that are out of scope so that the team doesn’t creep toward areas that are beyond the initial intent of the project.
Use: It is important for the team to develop a project charter in the define phase of DMAIC. This developmental step of the project charter provides a means to sell the project to upper management. It provides focus for the team, and it provides the boundaries of what the team is to work on and equally important, what the team is not chartered to address. If this step is skipped, ‘scope creep’ will inevitably occur, the team’s motivation tends to wane over time, and more often than not, the project will eventually die out and fail. The project charter is to be periodically brought out and re-presented to the team to keep the motivation level high.
