Define scope, stakeholders, success metrics, and constraints in one document. The artifact that prevents scope creep, name-it-when-you-see-it. Built for high-stakes program kickoffs.
Scope, out-of-scope, stakeholders, success metrics, constraints, assumptions, risks, governance. Each section with prompts that force precision.
Most charters list what's in scope. The good ones explicitly list what's out. This template forces the conversation that prevents 80% of scope creep.
A signature page that makes the charter binding, plus the cheat sheet on how to facilitate the kickoff session that produces a charter the sponsor will actually sign.
One purchase, yours to keep. Use it on every program, customize for your team. Works in Excel and Google Sheets.
Three months into every program, someone asks "is X in scope?" and the team has three different answers. By month six, the program has accreted four adjacent initiatives that nobody formally approved but everyone is somehow committed to. By the end, you're 40% over budget and the success metric has shifted twice.
A charter doesn't prevent this by being wordy. It prevents it by being explicit about what's NOT in scope. That's the conversation people avoid in kickoff because it feels combative — but it's the most useful 30 minutes you'll spend on the program.
"A charter without an out-of-scope section is a wishlist."
This template structures the kickoff to force the hard conversations early. The cheat sheet covers how to facilitate it without the sponsor checking out at slide 4.