Project Charters and Having Them Signed

This is going to be a very short blog on the importance of getting a client signature on a project charter. This semester one of the teams I am on was tasked with researching an event management system which was to be implemented at a local business. The project started out slow from the get go and was plagued with numerous delays on both the project team side and client side. Toward the end of the semester our group met with the client to obtain approval on the software which was to be researched. Our charter was supposed to be signed during this meeting but was unfortunately forgotten about and scheduled to be signed at a later date. The following day we received news that an event management system would not be compatible with how this company conducts business. Consequently the project was set back several weeks and all of our previous research had to be scrapped. If the charter had been signed from the get go all of that could have been avoided and we could have simply submitted our previous research.