Does a Project Charter or Project Initiation Document Lead to a More Manageable Project Delivery?

Initiating a project usually involves writing one of two documents; a Project Charter or a Project Initiation Document (PID). Now a great many things happen during initiation. High level scope is determined, deliverables set and budgets estimated.
If these aren't investigated and documented effectively it can adversely impact the entire successful delivery. But which document is better for ensuring this?

Well to give a quick overview, a PID is a highly detailed paper which forces a PM to spend time upfront in seriously thinking about the deliverables, processes and governance required, before it even starts. A Project Charter is far less detailed and hence requires much less from a PM. It is essentially a quick way for work to get underway fast.

However, despite this, both documents have a similar feel and endeavour to fulfil the function of enabling effective initiation. But as you will have already seen, both definitely put the emphasis in different areas.
So which is better? Well if you have a small project then writing a long, convoluted PID doesn't make sense. On something this size it is highly likely the deliverable will be simple, the amount of resources utilised small and there will be just the one Sponsor.

Essential Documents to Manage Your Projects

Speak to an experienced project manager, and they can give you a wealth of good advice on the do's and don'ts to successfully manage any project. All this advice, in a nutshell, would be about how to manage the people doing the work (that includes you too), to deliver their results on time and to a budget, while keeping the risk of failure to a minimum.
It really doesn't sound that difficult to do, but for some reason, many people think that project management is a massive overhead to any project. I often hear phrases like "oh, don't waste your time planning the work, just do it!" or "why are you wasting your time writing the objectives, we all know what needs to be done!"
So the number one shortcut to successfully manage any project is:
"Understand the few essential brief documents you need to create and regularly review during the life of your project."

Document 1 - The Project Charter

For example, at the beginning of your project, you need to create a one-page document called the project charter. This document will make sure that you and your customer understand the general goals of the project. After all, if you don't know where you are going, how are you going to get there? Remember, you could also be your own customer!

How Managers Monitor and Control Worker Behavior

Managers have to monitor the activities of their team and the external forces. Without that monitoring you won't know whether your plan is working or if it needs to be adjusted. And managers must then control those elements that they can control to keep everyone moving toward the goal.

In the control task, you monitor the work being done. You compare the actual progress to the plan. You verify that the organization is working as you designed it.

If everything is going well, you do not need to do anything but monitor. However, that seldom happens. Someone gets sick, the database sort takes longer each iteration than projected, a key competitor drops their prices, a fire destroys the building next door and you have to evacuate for several days, or some other factor impacts your plan. The control step now dictates that you have to take action to minimize the impact and brings things back to the desired goal as quickly as possible.

That means going back to the planning stage and adjusting plans. It may require a change in the organization and you will have to re-direct everyone toward the new goals. Then you control the new plan and adjust if needed. This cycle continues until you complete the task.
Here are some additional aspects of Monitor and Control:
Keeping Score Isn't Winning
There is no point in monitoring if you don't take action based on the information. Don't just keep track. Make sure you are measuring the right things and then take appropriate action to fix whatever problems the measurements point out.