Website Development Project Charter
This is a practical guide to building a project charter for a website development 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 designing and building a new website.
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 a website development project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Website Development project
Website Development projects live or die on designing and building a new website. 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 website development 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
Website Development-specific considerations
Tailor the project charter to the risks that most often derail website development projects:
- Scope creep from stakeholder requests
- Content readiness delays
- Browser/device compatibility
Example
On a real website development project, the project charter would be shaped by designing and building a new website. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — scope creep from stakeholder requests, content readiness delays, browser/device compatibility — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.