The prompt
Score 10 of 10, Excellent
Use it when You need goals, scope, out-of-scope items, success measures and roles agreed before work starts.
- {{project_name}}
- {{sponsor}}
- {{project_manager}}
- {{budget_and_dates}}
- {{stakeholders}}
- {{project_notes}}
Full prompt and why it works
Prompt
Project name: {{project_name}} Sponsor (who owns the outcome and the budget): {{sponsor}} Project manager: {{project_manager}} Budget and fixed dates: {{budget_and_dates}} Teams and people involved: {{stakeholders}} Background, goals and anything already agreed: """ {{project_notes}} """ Task: Write a project charter, including a scope statement, for the sponsor and team to agree before work starts. Its job is to make sure everyone means the same thing by "done", and to give us something to point to when someone asks for more. Use these headings: 1. Purpose: the problem or opportunity and why now, in up to four sentences. 2. Objectives: two to four, each specific enough that we will know at the end whether it was met. 3. Success measures: a table with the columns Measure, Baseline, Target, When measured, Who measures. Use only baselines from my notes; write "to measure" where there is none. 4. In scope: the deliverables, as a list. 5. Out of scope: what is not included, especially things people might reasonably assume are, for example "training for teams outside the pilot sites". This list prevents more arguments later than any other section. 6. Milestones: the main ones, with target dates. 7. Roles and decisions: the sponsor, project manager and team, who approves changes to scope, budget or dates, and who must be consulted. 8. Assumptions and constraints. 9. Top risks: three to five. 10. Changes to scope: how they will be handled, with a short written request, an estimate of the effect on time and cost, and approval by the person named in Roles. 11. Approval: lines for the sponsor and project manager to sign and date. Requirements: - Under 900 words, in plain language anyone in the organization could follow. - Write objectives as outcomes ("cut invoice processing time"), not activities ("implement new software"). - Use only facts from my notes. Do not invent budgets, dates, names or measures, and do not guess: where the charter needs something I have not given, write "[to confirm]" and add it to a list of open questions at the end. If my notes describe more than one project, or goals that pull against each other, point this out at the top rather than blending them, because a charter with two competing goals usually ends up meeting neither.
Variables
- {{project_name}}
- The project's name.
- {{sponsor}}
- Name or role of the person who owns the outcome.
- {{project_manager}}
- Name or role of whoever runs the project day to day.
- {{budget_and_dates}}
- Budget, deadline and any fixed dates. Write "not set" for anything undecided.
- {{stakeholders}}
- Teams and roles involved in or affected by the project.
- {{project_notes}}
- Why the project exists, what it should achieve, decisions already made, and what is in and out as far as you know.
Why it works
- What to avoid. An explicit out-of-scope list, naming the things people might assume are included, is what stops scope creep later in the project.
- What good looks like. Objectives must be outcomes with a measure, a baseline and a target, so the end of the project has a clear test of success.
- If unsure. Anything missing is marked "to confirm" and gathered into open questions for the kickoff, instead of an invented budget or date.