Who creates and signs the Project Charter

In the past week I have received about 3 emails that pretty much all asked the same question: "Who creates / signs the project charter". Let's look at this from the PMBOK® Guide point of view because I want people to understand this in regards to the PMP exam.

The PMBOK® Guide 3rd edition (The "old" one) says this

A project initiator or sponsor external to the project organization at a level that is appropriate to funding the project, issues the project charter. Projects are usually chartered and authorized external to the project organization by an enterprise, a government agency, a company, a program organization or a portfolio organization [...]

The PMBOK® Guide 4th edition (The "new" one) says this:

Projects are authorized by someone external to the project such as a sponsor, PMO or portfolio steering committee. The project initiator or sponsor should be at a level that is appropriate to funding the project. They will either create the project charter or delegate that duty to the project manager. The initiator’s signature on the charter authorizes the project.

While there is a difference in the words chosen between these two definitions, we have to distinguish between "the letter of the law" and "the spirit of the law". My opinion has always been a) that the initiator creates the charter, but that it is often done by the PM following a delegation and that b) the initiator is the person who signs the project.

The reasons for this are the following:

• The Project Manager is the subject matter expert when it comes to initiating and starting a project. Hence, the PM is usually more qualified to create the project charter. He/She has more experience in doing this and knows what kind of detail to add to the charter. We PMs usually know from past projects what is important in the charter and therefore we can create a "better" charter than the initiator.
• The initiator / sponsor on the other hand is the person who has to pay for the project. Therefore the project manager may under no circumstances sign the charter to authorize the project. Or what would you think, if a PM came to you and said "I have created this charter for our project, I have signed it, the project has started and you must now pay for it.". The PM may of course co-sign the charter, but the primary signature that is needed on the charter is that of the initiator / sponsor.

And it doesn't matter if you look at this from the PMBOK® Guide 3rd or 4th edition. They both mean to say the same thing but use different words. But yes... the 4th edition clarifies this nicely.