Project Charter Template for Small Teams
By the SystemaFlow team · Updated November 2026 · Share this
Three weeks into a website rebuild, the owner asks why it's costing more than she expected. The person running it thought the budget covered new photography. The designer thought the blog was out of scope. Nobody can point to where any of it was agreed.
A project charter is a short document, agreed before work starts, that sets out a project's purpose, scope, outcomes, owner, budget, risks and milestones, and records who signed it off. For a small team one or two pages is enough, and it can do the job of a project brief too. The template is below, followed by how the two compare and a worked example.
Project charter template (copy this)
Copy this into Word, Google Docs, Notion or wherever your projects live. Fill it in before work starts, and don't start until the sign-off box is complete.
PROJECT CHARTER: [Project name] Version: [v1.0] Date: [Date] 1. PURPOSE The problem: [What's wrong or missing now, in two or three sentences] Why now: [What makes this the right time] 2. OUTCOMES When it's done: [What will be different] How we'll measure it: Measure | Now | Target | Checked by [e.g. Enquiries a month]| [Baseline] | [Target] | [Name, date] 3. SCOPE In scope: [Everything this project will deliver] Out of scope: [What people might assume is included, but isn't] 4. PEOPLE Sponsor (approves and answers for it): [Name] Project lead (runs it day to day): [Name] Team: [Names and roles] Who needs to be kept informed: [Names or groups] 5. BUDGET AND RESOURCES Budget: [Total, with the main items] People time: [Who, how many days, when] Can be spent without asking the sponsor: [Limit] 6. MILESTONES Milestone | Target date | Done when [e.g. Designs approved]| [Date] | [What finished looks like] 7. RISKS Risk | How likely | What we'll do about it | Owner [What could go wrong] | [H / M / L] | [Action] | [Name] 8. ASSUMPTIONS AND DEPENDENCIES [What has to be true, or has to happen elsewhere, for this to work] 9. SIGN-OFF Decision: [Go / Revise / Stop] Approved by: [Name] Date: [Date] Conditions or next step: [Anything agreed with the decision]
What each part is for
| Part | The question it settles | Common slip |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Why are we doing this at all? | Describing the solution, not the problem |
| Outcomes | How will we know it worked? | No baseline, so there's nothing to compare against |
| Scope | What's included, and what isn't? | Leaving out the "out of scope" list |
| People | Who approves it, and who runs it? | The sponsor and the lead being the same person by default, without anyone deciding that |
| Budget and resources | What can it cost, in money and time? | Counting the money but not the people's days |
| Milestones | What are the headline dates? | Dates with no "done when" |
| Risks | What could stop it, and who's watching? | Risks with no owner |
| Assumptions | What are we relying on? | Not writing them down until one turns out to be wrong |
| Sign-off | Has someone with authority said go? | Starting work before the box is filled in |
The out-of-scope list and the sign-off do most of the work. The first stops the argument about what's included, and the second stops a project starting on a maybe.
Project charter vs project brief
The names overlap, and plenty of small teams use them for the same document. Where there's a difference, it's in emphasis.
| Project charter | Project brief | |
|---|---|---|
| Main job | Agree the project and authorise it to go ahead | Explain the problem and what the project should deliver |
| Weight on | Sign-off, authority, budget, milestones | Purpose, outcome, scope |
| Used most in | Formal project management and larger organisations | Agencies, marketing, creative and internal projects |
| Who reads it | The sponsor and whoever approves spending | The team doing the work, and sometimes the client |
For a small team, one document is enough. Use whichever name your team already understands, and make sure it covers both halves: the why and what of a brief, and the who-approved-it of a charter. The template above does both.
Our own version is called the Project Brief, for that reason. It's in the Business Essentials pack of the Business Foundations Vault, and it covers the same ground as the template above, with a filled-in example and a guide.
A project charter example
A typical example, made up for this post: a nine-person accountancy firm replacing the spreadsheet it uses to track client deadlines with a shared task tool.
| Part | What they wrote |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Client deadlines are tracked in one spreadsheet that only two people update. Last quarter two returns were nearly missed while one of them was on holiday. Why now: the busy season starts in three months. |
| Outcomes | Every client deadline in the new tool, with an owner and a backup. Measure: deadlines tracked outside the tool, from all of them now to none by the end. |
| In scope | Choosing the tool, moving every client deadline across, a one-page guide, a 30-minute session for each person. |
| Out of scope | Changing how the work itself is done. Connecting the tool to the accounts software. Client-facing reminders. |
| People | Sponsor: the managing partner. Lead: the practice manager. Team: two senior accountants for testing. |
| Budget | Tool subscription for the first year, plus four days of the practice manager's time and a day each from the two testers. Up to a set amount can be spent without asking. |
| Milestones | Tool chosen (week 2). All deadlines moved and checked (week 6). Spreadsheet set to read only (week 8). |
| Risks | Deadlines copied wrongly (medium; second person checks every one; practice manager). People keep using the spreadsheet (high; set it to read only at week 8; managing partner). |
| Sign-off | Go. Approved by the managing partner, with the condition that the busy-season dates are moved first. |
Two lines did the most good later. "Client-facing reminders" in the out-of-scope list stopped the project growing in week four, when someone suggested it. And the condition on the sign-off meant the most urgent deadlines were safe before anything else moved.
Is your charter ready to sign?
Tick what's true of your draft.
Is your project charter ready to sign?
Take the draft charter for one real project and tick what's true.
After the sign-off
A signed charter starts the project, and three things keep it on course.
Take it into the kick-off. The first meeting should walk through the charter, not start from scratch. For client work, the client kick-off meeting agenda shows what to agree in the room.
Handle changes to scope in writing. When someone asks for something on the out-of-scope list, log it, price it in time or money, and get the sponsor's decision. The steps are in change requests and scope creep.
Make ownership clear for the bigger jobs. If several people touch each milestone, a RACI chart shows who does the work and who answers for it.
For client projects, the charter fits into the wider client onboarding process, from a signed proposal to the first piece of work.
When you don't need a charter
We'd skip it for a job one person can finish in a few days with no budget to approve. A short task with an owner and a due date is enough for that. Write a charter when a project involves more than one or two people, spends money that needs approving, or runs for more than a few weeks. It also helps when two people have already described the project differently.
Want the full version?
The Project Brief in the Business Essentials pack does a charter's job for a small team: why the project exists, what success looks like, what's in and out, the budget and who approves it, before work starts. When it's approved, the Project Kick-off Planner and Risks and Blockers Log in the Project Execution pack carry it into delivery. Both packs are in the Business Foundations Core Vault.
See what's in the Business Foundations Vault →Or get all 352 systems, and every one we add later, with Masterworks: $999, paid once.
Was this helpful?
Frequently asked questions
- What is a project charter?
- A short document, agreed before work starts, that sets out why a project exists, what it should achieve, what's in and out of scope, who owns it, the budget, the main risks and milestones, and who has approved it. In formal project management it's often the document that authorises the project to go ahead.
- What's the difference between a project charter and a project brief?
- The two overlap a lot, and many small teams use the names for the same thing. A charter usually puts more weight on approval and authority: who signed it off and what the project lead can decide. A brief usually puts more weight on the problem, the outcome and the scope. A small team rarely needs both.
- Who writes and signs a project charter?
- The project lead usually drafts it, and the person paying for or answering for the project signs it off. In a small business that's often the owner. Record the name and date of the sign-off on the charter itself.
- How long should a project charter be?
- One or two pages for most small-business projects. If it runs longer, the detail probably belongs in the project plan or the risks log, linked from the charter.
- Is a project charter the same as a project plan?
- No. The charter agrees what the project is and that it should go ahead. The plan comes after and sets out the tasks, dates and who does what. The charter's milestones are the headline dates the plan has to hit.
- Is a project charter the same as a statement of work?
- They cover similar ground, but a statement of work is usually agreed with a client or supplier as part of a contract, describing the work and what will be delivered. A charter is usually internal. If a client project has a statement of work, the charter can point to it for the scope.
