How to Sink a Charter in Three Steps or Less

So your boss involved you in that Web Operations Management thing and told you to pull together a charter for the, fill in the blank… Web Policy Council, Standards Team, Working Group, etc.  As any resourceful individual whose company does not have a usable Intranet, you turn to Google and save the day when you realize NASA (or some other organized entity willing to share knowledge) has a great template you can repurpose.  “If it works for NASA, it will work for me” you think. After all, they do rocket science!  

And there starts the downward spiral to sinking a charter. Taking a charter that works for one organization and apply it to another with a few small changes does not allow you to address the unique challenges facing your organization. But if that isn’t enough, you might reference some other common mistakes that cause a charter to fail in its fundamental mission.

#1. Writing a charter with no teeth.  Meaning, write about all of the good things you will accomplish, but leave out how the hard decisions will get made, how you will curb bad behavior, or how you will deal with difficult people.  This makes your process messy and guarantees doom, if not for the overall initiative, then at least for the charter.

#2. Keeping the mystery alive.  Just like a 200-page murder story or a soft cover romance novel, your charter can use a good dose of mystery. So make the charter long, keep the details hidden, and the mystery alive!

#3. Forgetting the commitment. By all means, write the charter, and don’t ask for those adopting the charter to commit and sign it. 

But don’t despair! Just as you now know some common ways to sink a charter, you can also avoid those icebergs and look to make your effort a success.