| Course | GM591 Strategic Project Selection and Initiation |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 7 |
| Paper type | Project charter |
| Length | About 880 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MS in Management |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GM591 Unit 7
A Mandate, a Finish Line and Nothing Else: A Unit 7 Project Charter for Meter Replacement
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GM591: Strategic Project Selection and Initiation
Unit 7 Project Charter
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The electric cooperative, its staff and every figure are composite and illustrative; the standards and sources cited are real.
Purpose
This charter authorizes the Advanced Metering Replacement project at Coteau Plains Electric Cooperative, as approved by the board on the basis of the business case dated October 2. The business case states the problem: the cooperative's automated meter reading system, installed in 2011, loses vendor support in 2028, and monthly read failures have doubled since three years ago. The project will replace about 31,000 meters with an advanced metering system and deliver the six benefits listed in the case's register.
The Project Management Institute's guide assigns a charter two jobs: bringing the project formally into existence and handing its manager the right to use the organization's people and money on it (Project Management Institute, 2021). This charter does that and no more.
Sponsor
The general manager is the sponsor. The sponsor has authority to cancel the project at any gate review, to release contingency funds above the project manager's limit, and to resolve disputes between the project and operations over crews or schedules.
Project Manager and Mandate
The metering services supervisor is the project manager, with the following authority.
Money. Spending authority extends to the full approved budget of $9.4 million, including the $0.9 million line for project staff and contingency. Any single change up to $25,000 may be approved by the project manager without referral. Changes above $25,000, or a cumulative total of changes above $250,000, go to the sponsor.
Crews. The project manager may use up to two line crews for up to sixty crew-days each quarter, by agreement with the operations director. During declared storm events, operations may recall crews without notice.
Decisions. The project manager decides the installation sequence, contractor assignments within the approved contract, and the order of district cutovers, subject to the gate reviews below.
The charter gives the project manager authority stated in dollars and crew-days, so that she does not need to ask permission for decisions the cooperative has already agreed to delegate.
Finish Line
The project is complete when three tests are met. First, at least 98 percent of meters report daily reads for two consecutive billing cycles. Second, the old head-end system is decommissioned and its support contract ended. Third, the billing system and the outage management system both draw on the new meter data in production.
Governance and Stakeholders
A steering group meets monthly: the sponsor, the project manager, the directors of operations, member services, finance and IT, and the billing supervisor. It reviews progress against the gate criteria and the benefits register but does not approve routine decisions, which remain with the project manager under the mandate above. Once a quarter, the project manager also briefs the board's planning committee. Benefit owners named in the business case, from the metering services supervisor to the finance director, are listed as stakeholders, because the project's success is measured by savings that appear in their budgets after deployment, not only by meters installed.
Assumptions
Meter and network prices hold within 5 percent of the spring bids. The billing system vendor completes its integration interface on schedule. Contractors can install about 1,200 meters a week in urban and town districts.
Constraints
The project must be complete before the old system's vendor support ends in 2028. Installation is restricted during the storm season, June through September, when crews are reserved for restoration. The project must stay within the board's rate impact limit of 2 percent in any year.
High-Level Risks
Six risks are recorded here at a high level; the risk register will carry their detail. Rural installation delays; billing integration errors; member privacy concerns about daily reads; contractor labor shortages; meter supply delays; and storm seasons that consume more crew time than planned.
Gate Reviews
The project will pass through three gates, each a decision by the sponsor to continue, adjust or stop. Robert Cooper describes gates as decision points where a project must meet defined criteria to receive resources for the next stage (Cooper, 2008). Gate 1, after the pilot district installation, tests billing integration. Gate 2, after 50 percent deployment, tests installation rate and early benefits. Gate 3, before decommissioning, tests the finish line.
Appendix: Moved to the Project Plan
An earlier draft of this charter included material that belongs elsewhere. Harold Kerzner distinguishes the charter, which authorizes, from the project plan, which describes how the work will be done (Kerzner, 2022).
The forty-line task list. Moved to the work breakdown structure in the project plan.
The installation calendar by district. Moved to the project schedule, which the project manager owns and may change within the gate dates.
Contractor staffing levels. Moved to the resource plan.
The member communications schedule. Moved to the communications plan, owned by member services.
Detailed risk responses. Moved to the risk register.
Keeping these out of the charter means the sponsor signs the purpose, the mandate and the finish line, and the project manager can change the plan without reopening the charter.
References
Cooper, R. G. (2008). Perspective: The Stage-Gate idea-to-launch process: Update, what's new, and NexGen systems. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 25(3), 213-232. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5885.2008.00296.x
Kerzner, H. (2022). Project management: A systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling (13th ed.). Wiley.
Project Management Institute. (2021). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (7th ed.).
The Purdue Global GM591 Unit 7 instructions
For GM591 Unit 7 you draft the charter that formally launches a project already approved. Tie its purpose to the approved business case and quote the problem it solves. Name the sponsor and state the sponsor's powers, especially the power to cancel. Give the project manager a specific mandate over money, people and decisions, with limits stated in numbers. Define the finish line as tests that can be checked. List assumptions, constraints and high-level risks briefly. Include only dates driven by external constraints and the dates of gate reviews. Describe governance and stakeholders, including benefit owners. Keep task lists, schedules, staffing plans and detailed risk responses out of the charter, and show where each belongs instead. Expect about four pages under the organization's template, with a short appendix of material moved to the plan, citing project management standards in APA 7.
Inside the GM591 Unit 7 example
The purpose ties the project to the board's approval of the October 2 business case and quotes its problem statement, then cites the PMBOK guide on what a charter does. The sponsor section gives the general manager cancellation and contingency powers. The mandate sets money, crews and decisions in numbers, with storm recalls allowed, and the highlighted sentence explains why. The finish line gives three tests. A governance section names a monthly steering group, quarterly briefings and benefit owners as stakeholders. Assumptions, constraints including the 2028 deadline and the storm season, and six risks follow. Three gates are described with Cooper's stage-gate definition. The appendix, citing Kerzner on charter and plan, moves the forty-line task list, district calendar, staffing, communications schedule and risk responses to their proper documents.
Where the points sit in the GM591 Unit 7 rubric
GM591 instructors grade this charter on whether it authorizes clearly and leaves planning to the plan. A purpose tied to the approved case earns early credit. The sponsor's powers, especially to cancel, should be explicit. The project manager's mandate carries significant weight: limits on spending, changes and people stated in numbers show the writer understands delegated authority. A finish line written as checkable tests earns more than a general goal. Dates should be limited to external constraints and gates. Governance that names benefit owners connects the charter to the business case. Showing where removed material went demonstrates the boundary between charter and plan. The Project Management Institute's PMBOK Guide, Cooper's Journal of Product Innovation Management article and Kerzner's Project Management provide the references in APA 7.
GM591 Unit 7 help from the desk
Many GM591 Unit 7 charters read as project plans, with task lists and schedules that the sponsor should not need to sign. Others give the project manager authority in vague terms, so every decision still needs permission. A common gap is the finish line: a goal such as installing new meters cannot be checked, while a percentage of meters reporting can. Some writers leave out the sponsor's power to cancel, which makes gate reviews meaningless. Tie the purpose to the case, name the sponsor and their powers, write the mandate in numbers, define completion as tests, keep dates to constraints and gates, name governance and move planning material elsewhere.
Get a GM591 Unit 7 example written to your instructions
Send the approved project, or the one your prompt describes, with its business case if one exists, the sponsor's role, and what the project manager should be allowed to decide alone. The Unit 7 instructions and rubric complete it. A first charter is free and arrives within 24-48h, authorization written in and scheduling left out. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More GM591 papers and MS in Management samples
- GM591 Unit 1: Project Escalation Discussion Post
- GM591 Unit 2: Project Screening Matrix
- GM591 Unit 3: NPV and Payback Screening Exercise
- GM591 Unit 4: Weighted Scoring Model
- GM591 Unit 5: Meter Replacement Business Case
- GM591 Unit 6: Ending Projects Seminar Reflection
- GM591 Unit 8: Gate Review Memo
- GM591 Unit 9: Portfolio Capacity Review
- GM591 Unit 10: Selection Recommendation
- GM586 Unit 7: Transactional vs Transformational Paper
- GM585 Unit 7: Mentoring Program Design
- GM543 Unit 7: Matrix Dispute Case Analysis
- GM541 Unit 7: Sensor Service Stakeholder Impact Map
GM591 Unit 7 questions, answered
Can a charter include any dates at all?
Usually a few, at summary level: a required completion date driven by a constraint, and the dates of major decision points such as gate reviews. What does not belong is a schedule of work. If a date exists because of an external deadline, include it with its reason; if it exists because someone estimated a task's duration, it belongs in the plan.
Who should be the sponsor?
Someone who controls the budget and can end the project outright, typically a senior executive rather than the project manager or a committee. The charter should name that person by role and state both powers. A sponsor who cannot cancel leaves gate reviews without consequence, and graders often read that gap as a misunderstanding of what a charter does.
How long should a charter be?
Short. Many organizational charters run two to five pages, and course prompts often expect similar. Length usually signals planning content that crept in. Every section should answer a question the sponsor must decide now, and anything the project team will work out later can be referenced rather than written into the charter itself.
Where can I find a free GM591 Unit 7 sample paper?
This page carries a full GM591 Unit 7 project charter for electric cooperative meter replacement, with a numeric mandate, a three-test finish line, gate reviews and APA 7 references.
Why does the charter leave out the task list and schedule?
The charter grants authority and draws the project's limits, while the plan works out how the job gets done. Keeping tasks and dates in the plan lets the project manager change them without reopening a document the sponsor has signed.