Structure

Charters support authors to gather information about the documentation task and set a goal. They are used to determine in advance the amount of resources you want to invest in the creation and maintenance of a document.

The basic question is if the document is needed at all. Who is in disadvantage if the document/chapter/paragraph/sentence/word to be created will not exist? What will happen if the information of the document will be forgotten? Which information is relevant in the future (include stakeholders in the consideration that will be part of the project at a later time - such as support or maintenance staff)?

If a stakeholder in demand for the document is found, there is still the question about how large the investment will be. The answer to this question depends on multiple factors.

• The more people read a document, the more effort may be put into its creation and maintenance. Imagine - for instance - a document is read by 100 people. If you could reshape the document so that each reader invests 10 minutes less in reading, the break even point for the investment of time is 1.000 minutes, which is over 16 hours.
• Documents for internal use may be less polished, but should be an enjoyable read nonetheless. The less effort team members need to invest, the less resources are consumed.
• Documents that change infrequently (or never) may justify a larger investment. Information that changes frequently, but is important to provide should be considered to be automatically generated.

It is not only the amount of resources the team decides to put into the creation and maintenance of a document. A charter also notes the

• intended audience,
• the level of abstraction,
• topic to be examined,
• the intended goal,
• the tone,
• resources already existing on this topic,
• experts to consult,
• and the deadline for the document.

Once the stage is set the charter document may also serve as a working document where all pieces of information are collected during the research on the topic.

Advantages

• Authors get the information they need to create the right documents in advance.
• Especially at least one stakeholder has to declare the need for the document. This reduces the risk of creating documents nobody needs.
• After the creation of the document meta-information can still be stored in the charter document. This may help team members who need to update the document.

Disadvantages

• Creating a charter requires some extra time.
• Charters and iteration or task planning have the same intention. Teams should only apply one form of planning.

Related Practices

The following practices are related to this practice.

Resources

For more information regarding this practice please refer to: