Achieving organizational-wide support: The effective use of a project charter in an enterprise project

Montclair State University was undertaking a large change project – the replacement of the sole Learning Management System (LMS) for the university. While the need for the LMS was largely endorsed by the university community, there was significant skepticism toward the success implementation of the Canvas LMS. The university retained Terrance Lau, a professional project manager to lead the project. As the project required the support of the entire community, one of the critical success factors was effective communication. Thus, the project team needed to devise an approach that enabled the transparent communication with over 24,000 at the University, with regards to the project’s purpose, approach, roadmap, risk and obstacles, along with the resources required for the successful delivery. With Lau’s guidance, the team agreed to develop a project charter. Primary questions evolved such as: What should the project charter include? Who should be involved in the creation, review, and sign-off of the project charter?