How_to_Use_This_Template

📖 How to use this template

A charter is the document that turns "we should probably do something about this" into an approved project. This project holds the six sections of that document as task lists, with sponsor, budget and stakeholder approvals wired into the sign-off.

  1. Duplicate this project into your own organization (dropdown next to the project name, then Duplicate)
  2. Rename it. Swap "Project Charter" for your actual project name.
  3. Shift the dates. The template runs March to June 2027. Select all tasks in Timeline view and drag the whole block to your real start date, dependencies move with it.
  4. Reassign everyone. The sample assignees are placeholders. Replace them with your team.
  5. Reset the approvals. Sample approval requests are on eight tasks so you can see the workflow. Clear them, then re-request as your own charter progresses.
  6. Delete the sections you don't need. A two-week internal project does not need a risk register. A twelve-month program absolutely does.
  7. Read Writing the charter below for what belongs in each section.

Two sublists do the reporting for you. Key Milestones holds the three dates for upward reporting. Charter Content holds every task whose output gets written into the one-pager, so working that list writes the document for you.

Writing the charter

What a project charter is for

A charter answers five questions in one place:

  1. Why are we doing this, and what happens if we don't?
  2. What will we deliver, and what are we deliberately not delivering?
  3. Who does the work, who decides, who needs to be told?
  4. What does it cost in money and people?
  5. What could go wrong, and who owns that risk?

If you cannot answer all five, you do not have a project yet. You have an idea.

The six sections

Section What goes in it Finish it before
1. Purpose & Business Case Problem statement, business case, SMART objectives, strategic alignment You write anything else
2. Scope & Deliverables In scope, out of scope, assumptions, dependencies You estimate budget
3. Stakeholders & Team Team roster, RACI, sponsor, communication plan You ask anyone to commit time
4. Resources, Budget & Risks Cost per deliverable, effort, tools, risk register You take it to the sponsor
5. Timeline & Milestones Phases, gates, the three milestones The internal review
6. Review & Sign-off Internal review, stakeholder feedback, sign-off, kickoff You start executing

The order matters. Scope written before purpose tends to be a wish list. Budget estimated before scope is a guess.

A few honest notes

The out-of-scope list is the most valuable section. Nobody argues about what you promised. They argue about what they assumed. Write down the assumptions you are rejecting.

One Accountable per RACI row. Two people accountable means nobody is.

A risk without a named owner is a wish. If nobody's name is next to it, it will not be mitigated.

Keep the charter to a few pages. A charter people actually read beats a thorough one they don't.

Revisit it at every phase gate. Charters go stale. Ten minutes of review at each gate saves two weeks of confusion later.

Adapting it

Small project (under a month?) Keep sections 1, 2 and 6. Delete the rest.

Regulated or high-budget? Keep everything, and add a compliance sub-task under Section 4.

Agency or client work? Rename Section 3 to "Client & Team" and add the client's approver to the RACI. Add payment milestones to Section 5.

Internal tooling project? Section 2's out-of-scope list is where you push back on feature creep. Be specific there.

What's set up for you

Approvals

This template uses Quire's built-in Approval workflow rather than a custom status field, so approvals show up in the Approvals widget, in notifications, and in each task's activity feed.

Three approval categories are set up:

Category Use it for
Sponsor Approval Business case, risk register, final sign-off
Budget Approval Cost and effort estimates, anything Finance must clear
Stakeholder Review Problem statement, RACI, dependencies, the final charter

To use it: open a task → Request approval → pick the category. The approver gets Approve, Reject, or Request changes. Sample requests are already on eight tasks so you can see all four states in the widget.

Rosters are open by default, so anyone on the project can request or approve. If you want to lock that down, set claimers and approvers per category in project settings.

Views

Timeline

The default view. Every task has a start and due date, and the critical path is already linked with dependencies. Drag a bar and everything downstream moves with it.

The three diamonds are milestones: Charter draft complete, Charter approved by sponsor, Project kickoff. Those are the only three dates your sponsor will remember.

Table

Turn on these columns for the fullest picture:

  • Charter Role — who is accountable in RACI terms
  • Estimated Cost — budget per deliverable
  • Estimated Effort — hours, so you can sanity-check against real capacity
  • Approval — the built-in approval state

Group by Charter Role when you are checking one person is not carrying the whole charter alone. Sum the Estimated Cost column for your budget line.

Board

Group by Status to run the charter like a small kanban: To-do → In progress → In Review → Completed. Blocked is there for the tasks stuck waiting on someone outside the team, use it, an honest blocked column beats a silently late task.

Custom fields

Field Type Why it's here
Charter Role Select Sponsor / PM / Team Lead / SME / Stakeholder. Gives you a lightweight RACI without maintaining a second spreadsheet.
Estimated Cost Money Cost per deliverable. Sum it in Table view for your budget line.
Estimated Effort Duration Effort per task. Compare against what your team actually has free, not what the plan assumes.

Tags

Charter Doc on anything that ends up in the final document. Stakeholder, Budget and Risk for filtering by concern. Milestone on the three key dates.

Filter by Risk before a steering meeting and you have half your agenda.

Sublists

Two saved lists cut across the sections:

  • Key Milestones — the three dates for upward reporting
  • Charter Content — every task whose output gets written into the one-pager. Work this list and the document writes itself.

Statuses

Beyond Quire's defaults, two extras:

  • In Review — written, not yet approved. Most of a charter lives here for a week or two.
  • Blocked — waiting on something outside your control. If a task sits here for more than a few days, it belongs on the risk register.
Project: Project Charter