• Purpose: Clearly identify the objectives of the BI project. The goals of the project must be made clear to the stakeholders.
• Input: All documentation
• Activities: Consolidate Documentation from planning stage
• Outputs: Acceptance of project charter by frame stakeholders
• Documentation: Project charter

It is assumed that a project proposal has been delivered and accepted. The next step is to develop a project charter. The project charter is usually a short document that refers to more detailed documents such as a new offering request or a request for proposal. The project charter establishes the authority assigned to the project manager. This is a project management tool used to define the scope, objectives and participants in a project. See wikipedia section on Project Charter or .

Purpose

The purpose of the project charter is to document:

• Reasons for Project
• Objectives and constraints
• Directions concerning the solution
• Identities of the main stakeholders

Charter contents

The charter should contain:

• Preliminary delineation of roles and responsibilities
• An outline of project objectives
• Identities of the main stakeholders
• Project manager's authority
• References to important project documents

Uses

The three main uses of the project charter:

• To authorize the project - using a comparable format, projects can be ranked and authorized by Return on Investment.
• Serves as the primary sales document for the project - ranking stakeholders have a 1-2 page summary to distribute, present, and keep handy for fending off other project or operations runs at project resources.
• As a focus point throughout the project - for example: project as people walk in to team meetings and use in change control meetings to ensure tight scope management.