Outsourcing Project Charter
This is a practical guide to building a project charter for an outsourcing project — the short authorising document that names the sponsor, states the objective and gives the manager authority to run the project, adapted to the realities of outsourcing a function to an external provider.
What a Project Charter is
A project charter is the short authorising document that names the sponsor, states the objective and gives the manager authority to run the project. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Project Charter. On an outsourcing project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for an Outsourcing project
Outsourcing projects live or die on outsourcing a function to an external provider. A well-built project charter gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how outsourcing projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Purpose and business justification
- Objectives and success criteria
- High-level scope (in and out)
- Budget and timeline summary
- Key stakeholders and sponsor sign-off
Outsourcing-specific considerations
Tailor the project charter to the risks that most often derail outsourcing projects:
- Knowledge transfer
- Service-level definition
- People impact
Example
On a real outsourcing project, the project charter would be shaped by outsourcing a function to an external provider. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — knowledge transfer, service-level definition, people impact — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.