A PMBOK® Guide-aligned, agent-assisted project initiation system for developing sponsor-ready project charters from approved business cases, early project ideas, notes, spreadsheets, project plans, CSVs, Word documents, stakeholder inputs, and source artifacts.
This repository is designed in two layers:
- GitHub repository layer - for discovery, explanation, examples, sample outputs, workflow diagrams, and public portfolio review.
- ChatGPT Project runtime layer - the flat folder a user uploads into a ChatGPT Project to actually run the workflow.
Use in ChatGPT: upload only the files inside
chatgpt-project/. Do not upload the full repository.
Public portfolio prototype. Designed for ChatGPT Project use, sponsor review, and workflow demonstration. Not a SaaS product, autonomous approval engine, or substitute for sponsor authorization, delivery planning, finance review, or governance approval.
Open these first:
chatgpt-project/for the flat ChatGPT runtime.examples/sample-data/for synthetic intake and source artifacts.examples/sample-outputs/for generated Markdown, HTML, DOCX, and quality-review outputs.quality-review/for review gates and critique.
Evaluate the repo on whether it turns approved intent into clear authorization, scope, ownership, governance rhythm, risks, dependencies, assumptions, open decisions, and planning handoff.
Before: a project has enough intent to start moving, but scope, sponsor authority, decision rights, success measures, constraints, dependencies, and change-control rules are still scattered or implied.
After: the work is framed as a sponsor-ready charter that defines why the project exists, what is authorized, who owns decisions, what is in and out of scope, what must be governed, and how the project moves into planning and execution.
Customer-language research reinforced a key boundary: this product should not make vague ideas look authorized. The public positioning should emphasize that a charter starts after enough intent, evidence, sponsorship, or business-case logic exists to define authorization and execution guardrails.
Lead with:
- what problem is being solved;
- what is authorized now versus explicitly out of scope;
- who owns sponsorship, decisions, success measures, and change control;
- what assumptions, constraints, risks, dependencies, and open decisions remain;
- which downstream module should receive unresolved scoring, capacity, release, value, or controls questions.
The module is structurally strong. The improvement target is making the README and examples even clearer that chartering is authorization framing, not business case invention or autonomous approval.
GitHub renders the workflow below directly from Mermaid. A rendered PDF is also included for offline review or portfolio sharing.
flowchart TD
A[Early Idea or Approved Business Case] --> B[Artifact Intake]
B --> C[Evidence Inventory]
C --> D[Adaptive Interview]
D --> E{Charter Ready?}
E -- No --> F[Clarify Sponsor, Scope, Decisions, Measures]
F --> D
E -- Yes --> G[Draft Project Charter]
G --> H[Quality Review Gate]
H --> I{Sponsor Ready?}
I -- No --> J[Revise Scope, Governance, Risks, Dependencies]
J --> G
I -- Yes --> K[Human Sponsor Review]
K --> L[Downstream Handoff Note]
L --> M[Scoring, sequencing, governance, release readiness, value, or controls]
Project Charter Initiation Agent helps a human move from an early project concept or approved business case into an initiation-ready project charter. It behaves like a senior project initiation and governance advisor. It interviews the user, ingests source artifacts, challenges weak framing, and produces polished outputs in Markdown, HTML, and DOCX.
The system helps clarify:
- Why the project exists
- What business outcome it supports
- Who sponsors and owns it
- What is in scope and out of scope
- What deliverables are authorized
- What success measures will be used
- What assumptions and constraints govern the work
- What risks, dependencies, and open decisions must be managed
- What governance rhythm, escalation path, and change-control model will be used
- What milestone path moves the project from initiation into planning and execution
This is not a generic template library, a fake SaaS platform, or an autonomous approval engine. It does not replace sponsor judgment, finance review, technical review, delivery planning, or governance approval. It helps a human structure the project initiation conversation and produce a clearer charter.
The charter should not reargue the full business case. The charter establishes authorization, scope, ownership, execution guardrails, governance discipline, and the path into planning and execution.
| Boundary question | Answer |
|---|---|
| This module starts when | A project has enough approved intent, business-case support, sponsor interest, or source evidence to define authorization and execution guardrails. |
| This module ends when | A sponsor-ready charter, quality review, and downstream handoff note are ready for human review. |
| This module produces | Project charter, intake summary, scope/exclusion view, roles, success measures, risks, dependencies, open decisions, governance model, and planning handoff. |
| This module hands off to | Portfolio Prioritization Scoring Agent, Portfolio Capacity Sequencing Planner, PMO Governance Operations Log, Release Readiness and UAT Governance Pack, Value Realization Governance Ledger, or Controls Exposure Governance Toolkit. |
| This module does not | Build the full business case, approve the project, commit funding or resources, produce a detailed project schedule, score priority, run execution governance, or accept risk. |
| Need | Better destination |
|---|---|
| Investment logic is still weak or not approved | Business Case System |
| Project should be compared against other initiatives | Portfolio Prioritization Scoring Agent |
| Capacity, dependency, or timing conflicts need scenario planning | Portfolio Capacity Sequencing Planner |
| Active execution needs decisions, actions, risks, and follow-through | PMO Governance Operations Log |
| UAT, validation, release, or launch readiness is approaching | Release Readiness and UAT Governance Pack |
| Expected value needs tracking after approval | Value Realization Governance Ledger |
- Business owners who need to initiate a project cleanly
- Knowledge workers turning messy ideas into structured charters
- Entry-to-senior managers who need sponsor-ready framing
- Software developers and engineers who need clearer scope and decision rights
- Project managers, program managers, PMOs, and portfolio leaders
- Consultants and operations leaders building repeatable project initiation workflows
- Create a new ChatGPT Project.
- Upload only the files inside
chatgpt-project/. - Add your project notes, business case, spreadsheets, Word documents, CSVs, project plans, or stakeholder notes as source files.
- Start with a prompt such as:
I want to develop a project charter. Use the Project Charter Initiation Agent workflow. First ingest the uploaded artifacts, then ask only the highest-value missing questions before drafting.
- Ask for outputs in Markdown, HTML, or DOCX.
- Review the quality gate before treating the charter as sponsor-ready.
project-charter-initiation-agent/
README.md
AGENTS.md
LICENSE.md
.gitignore
chatgpt-project/ # Flat ChatGPT runtime folder. Upload this folder's files only.
examples/ # Synthetic sample data, prompts, and generated outputs.
templates/ # Optional standalone templates for browsing or local use.
tools/ # Lightweight local validation/generation helpers.
workflow/ # Mermaid source and rendered workflow PDF.
quality-review/ # Rubric and self-test evidence.
The chatgpt-project/ folder is the product. It is:
- Flat
- Self-contained
- Under 25 files
- Designed for operation inside ChatGPT Projects
- Focused on triggers, file-use rules, review gates, output patterns, and human-control guardrails
The rest of the repository supports public explanation, examples, GitHub discoverability, and local review.
The included fictional scenario is a customer onboarding control tower initiative. It includes dummy source artifacts, sample prompts, intake responses, generated Markdown, generated HTML, generated DOCX, and a charter quality review.
See:
project charter template, project initiation, PMBOK Guide aligned, PMP, project governance, project management, stakeholder register, business case, scope definition, assumptions log, risk register, dependency log, RACI, change control, sponsor approval, project manager authority, project planning, AI agent, agentic workflow, Markdown, HTML, DOCX.
The system can interview, organize, challenge, draft, and review. A human still owns project authorization, sponsor commitment, finance validation, delivery feasibility, risk acceptance, and governance approval.
Source code and scripts are licensed under MIT. Documentation, prompts, templates, examples, and other non-code materials are licensed under CC BY 4.0 with attribution to Marco Policani. See LICENSE.md.