Assignment: Project Charter Introduction

Assignment: Project Charter

Introduction

A project charter is an important document for project management. While it may be tempting to jump into solving a problem, this approach often leads to wasted time and rework because the problem was not clearly understood and the potential solution was not well articulated.

Creating a project charter for use by improvement teams streamlines the problem-solving process by helping to establish priorities, focus resources and provide training opportunities.

The charter should tell the reader:

• This is the problem
• This is how we know it’s a problem and why it is relevant
• This is what we plan to do to address the problem and improve

The project charter helps ensure that the project meets the standards for successful projects – on time, on budget and within scope. A project charter can be updated to show team members how they are collectively moving the dial towards safer and more reliable care. A charter is evidence-based and can serve as way to communicate with team members, sponsors and stakeholders. It can also be shared more broadly for the purposes of organizational learning.

The project charter assignment will allow you to continue work on a problem identified earlier in Assignment: Technical vs Adaptive Change. You will complete  project charter for this problem.

Watch the following videos before continuing on the assignment.

• The IHI Quality Improvement Project Charter Tool from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement [3:18]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEeN_gWbIu4&t=5s
• Improvement 101: The Process for Improvement [6:59]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXXVChS-ujQ

Instructions

1. Choose one of the five opportunities for improvement on your unit that you identified in Assignment: Technical vs Adaptive Change.
2. Develop a project charter following the template/format used by your organization. If you are not part of a health-care organization, present your work in a project charter format of your choice.
3. The following components are required, regardless of what format is used:

• Status of project
• Background/baseline data
• Problem statement
• Opportunity
• Timelines/Milestones
• Budget
• Assumptions/Risks with risk management plan
• Team membership
• Governance/sponsorship
• Stakeholder map
• Communication plan.

1. Outline the frameworks and tools applicable to solving the problem. Justify your choices:
   1. Demonstrate how the problem has been identified, using the appropriate tools (e.g., SIPOC, baseline data) for the improvement method and frameworks for managing change. Justify your choices in your submission.
   2. Present your chosen improvement method (Lean, Six Sigma, Clinical Quality Improvement, 6S, Failure Modes and Effect Analysis, etc.)
   3. Present your proposed change management framework (Prosci, Kotter, etc.).
2. You are encouraged to draw on your work in reviewing project management methodologies in the unit’s independent learning activities and lectures.
3. Show evidence of baseline data/current state based on your chosen tool (process mapping, run chart, Pareto chart) with benchmarking, literature review, and/or environmental scanning to build your understanding of the problem.
4. Outline proposed cycles of change. How they will be prioritized and measured (ongoing data collection, analysis, and reporting)?
5. . Your project charter should be no more than THREE pages.

Marking Criteria