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High-Level Milestones

Milestones are major events in a project that are used to measure progress. They may
also mark when key deliverables are completed and approved. Milestones are also used
as checkpoints during the project to determine whether the project is on schedule.

High-Level Budget

The detailed project budget is prepared later during the Planning processes. But for the
purposes of the project charter, you need to have a high-level estimate of the project’s
costs. You can use historical information from past projects that are similar in size,
scope, and complexity to the current project. Or you may ask your vendor community
to help you with some high-level estimates for the project.

High-Level Assumptions

Assumptions are events, actions, concepts, or ideas you believe to be true and plan for.
For example, you may have a resource need for the project with a highly specialized
skill. Someone with this skill set resides in your maintenance department, and since
you’ve worked with both the functional manager and this resource on past projects,
you assume they’ll be available for this project. You can make assumptions about many
elements of the project, including resource availability, funding, weather, timing of

other related events, availability of vendors, and so on. It’s important to always
document and validate your project assumptions.

Planning a School Building Repair

You have been assigned a project that requires repairs to the roof of a school

building and replacement of the air conditioning and airflow cleaning systems.
The heavy-duty equipment for these systems will be staged in the parking lot. The
old equipment will come off the roof and remain in the parking lot until the
disposal crew picks it up. The new equipment will be dropped off in the parking
lot, and a crane will lift it to the roof when the workers are ready. You scheduled
this project to begin on June 15 because all the students and faculty are gone for

the summer. You list this assumption in the project charter. During the kickoff
meeting, one of your stakeholders informs you that the school building is occupied
during the summer. A neighboring community college uses the building (and the
parking lot) to hold classes. You will add the community college as a stakeholder
on the project and devise an alternative solution for equipment staging as you
develop other planning documents.

High-Level Constraints

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