Project Lead Charter

This charter defines the Project Lead role at TechAbout: the single accountable owner of a client project or internal initiative, from first brief to stable handover. It is written for the people who lead and staff project work, and for anyone — including clients and candidates — who wants to understand how TechAbout keeps clear ownership of the work it delivers.

Mandate

A Project Lead owns one project end-to-end and is answerable for its outcome. They hold scope, timeline, quality, client communication, risk, and day-to-day coordination in one pair of hands so nothing falls between roles. The Project Lead is a temporary, per-initiative appointment: the role begins when a project is chartered and ends when the work is delivered and handed to support. It is deliberately different from a Team Lead, who is an ongoing people manager responsible for the growth, wellbeing, and performance of a group of employees across many projects. A person may lead a project one month and contribute to someone else's project the next.

Across every phase above, the Project Lead is the person who can answer "where are we, what's at risk, and what happens next" at any moment. Phase ownership shifts, but accountability for the whole does not.

Who owns each phase

• Intake — the Project Lead confirms the brief, scope, budget, and definition of done with the client and the account owner before work starts.
• Plan — the Project Lead, working with the Project Manager, sequences the work, sizes it, and sets milestones and the risk register.
• Build — engineers, designers, and specialists own the craft; the Project Lead clears blockers, protects scope, and keeps the plan honest.
• QA — QA owns testing and the quality bar; the Project Lead decides, together with QA, whether the work is ready to ship.
• Launch — the Project Lead coordinates the release and the client sign-off.
• Support — the Project Lead runs a clean handover to the support or account team, then the role closes.

Core Responsibilities

• Own scope: hold the agreed boundaries, and route every change through a visible change process rather than quiet expansion.
• Own timeline: maintain a realistic plan, track progress against milestones, and surface slippage early.
• Own quality: partner with QA so what ships meets the standard the client was promised.
• Own client communication: be the primary point of contact for status, decisions, and expectations.
• Own risk: keep a live view of what could derail the project and act before it does.
• Run day-to-day coordination: unblock people, resolve dependencies, and keep the team moving.
• Be the single Accountable owner for the project — one accountable person per initiative, always.

Decision Rights

Owns and approves: the project plan and milestones; task assignment and daily priorities within the team; small scope trade-offs that keep the project on time and on budget; ready-to-ship calls made jointly with QA; and what the client hears about status.

Escalates: scope changes that move budget, deadline, or commercial terms; resourcing gaps the team cannot absorb; quality or security risks that could harm the client or TechAbout; and any blocker that threatens a milestone. Client contracts, pricing, and staffing decisions are not the Project Lead's to make alone.

Escalate early — a raised hand today is cheaper than a missed date next week.

How Success Is Measured

• On time — milestones and launch delivered against the agreed plan.
• On scope — the project ships what was promised, with changes handled openly.
• Quality — work meets the standard and holds up after launch, with few post-launch defects.
• Client satisfaction — the client feels informed, respected, and well served throughout.

Who They Work With

• The Project Manager, for scheduling, tracking, and process.
• Engineers, designers, and specialists, who do the build.
• QA, on the quality bar and the ready-to-ship decision.
• The client and account owner, for scope, sign-off, and expectations.
• Team Leads, who supply and support the people staffed on the project.

Boundaries

• A Project Lead is not a people manager: appraisals, career growth, leave, and pay sit with the Team Lead. See Performance Appraisal and Learning & Development.
• They do not set client pricing, sign contracts, or make hiring or staffing decisions unilaterally.
• They do not silently absorb scope creep; changes are made visible and agreed.
• They do not override the QA or security bar to hit a date.

A note on wearing more than one hat

While the team is small, one person may currently hold this role alongside another — a Team Lead may also lead a project, or an engineer may lead one initiative and build on another. When that happens, be explicit about which hat you are wearing for each decision, and keep the single point of accountability for each project unambiguous. If two roles ever pull in different directions, name the conflict and escalate it rather than quietly resolving it in your own favour.

Questions? Contact hr@techabout.com.