5 Project Managers Walk Into a Meeting.
“What’s your project charter say?” asks one of the sponsors.
They shuffle their papers, clear their throats, and in perfect unison reply:
“To optimize cross-functional efficiencies through strategic alignment and synergy!”
…And that’s not even the punchline.
Lately I’ve come across far too many project charters that are nothing more than corporate jargon masquerading as strategy—a dense collection of buzzwords crammed into a polished template, complete with sections that look impressive but serve no real purpose. Most of them aren’t read, let alone used.
I understand—writing a project charter often feels like a bureaucratic formality, a box to check before the real work begins. As a result, teams fill them with polished, AI generated, impressive-sounding jargon that ultimately says nothing of substance.
Somewhere along the way, in too many organizations, the project charter drifted from being a clear, strategic business case to a bloated, PM-centric exercise in self-justification—more about proving a project’s existence than defining its value.
Here’s the brutal truth:
If your project charter doesn’t clearly spell out to your Portfolio Governance Board (PGB) what you’re doing, why it matters, and how success will be measured, it’s not a project charter. It’s a PowerPoint crime scene, and it shouldn’t be approved.
The best project charter I’ve ever written?
“We are doing X to solve Y because [specific problem] is costing the company Z. We’ll know we succeeded when [measurable outcome] happens. The scope of the solution is limited to A, B, & C. This is estimated to cost $$ over a duration of [time period].“
- Boring? Maybe.
- Clear? Absolutely.
- Actionable? You bet.
A project charter isn’t about fancy language or eye-catching design just to satisfy a requirement. It’s a strategic blueprint that ensures stakeholders and the team have absolute clarity on what’s being done, why it matters, what it requires, and how success will be measured.
More importantly, it provides the Portfolio Governance Board with the critical information they need to decide whether the project aligns with the organization’s priorities and is worth the investment of limited resources.
Think about what’s the worst—project charter you’ve ever encountered? did it help or hinder project execution?
