- A well-defined program charter
- An actionable program roadmap
These two planning assets work in tandem to define, guide, and communicate the purpose and value of your identity security program—both to key stakeholders and to the broader business. We’ll show how they help you keep teams on the same page, streamline decision-making, and highlight your program’s strategic value from day one.
Key objectives / takeaways
- Learn how a program charter clarifies purpose, scope, and responsibilities in your identity security program.
- Discover how a roadmap organizes major deliverables over time, helping you balance short-term wins with longer-term vision.
- See how both documents work together to educate stakeholders, secure ongoing funding, and keep your program evolving smoothly.
A quick refresher: program vs. project
If you joined us for our 'why “program vs. project” matters for identity security' blog post, you already know that programs and projects look similar on paper but have fundamentally different aims. Projects focus on discrete deliverables—like onboarding a new department or automating a single provisioning workflow. In contrast, a program is an ongoing framework. It adapts to new systems, regulatory changes, and shifting business realities, all while driving continuous improvement. To scale your identity security effectively, you need both:
- Short, tactical projects for immediate goals
- An overarching program to coordinate those projects, maintain best practices, and ensure everything ties back to broader organizational objectives
This is where your charter and roadmap truly shine.
The program charter: defining purpose and accountability
As highlighted by our 'The importance of an identity security program charter' article, every successful identity security program needs a solid foundation. The charter sets that foundation by spelling out why the program exists and how it will operate. Think of it as a formal contract—though not necessarily laden with legal jargon—that aligns all stakeholders on scope, goals, and decision-making structures.
What goes into a program charter?
Typically, a charter includes:
- Program objectives and scope: Identify key drivers (like compliance mandates or operational efficiencies), define which apps and identities fall under governance, and outline the major benefits you’re aiming for.
- Roles and responsibilities: Clarify who is accountable for budgeting, steering committees, day-to-day management, and technical oversight. This prevents confusion later on and fosters alignment across departments.
- Success metrics: These might include average time to provision/deprovision, how many apps are covered by your governance framework, or how quickly you’re addressing high-risk access. Having baseline metrics ensures stakeholders see measurable progress.
- Funding and resource expectations: The charter often references ongoing support and funding structures that keep your identity security program healthy for the long haul.
Accelerate with our curated charter template
To help you jumpstart the process, SailPoint offers an identity security program charter template that you can tailor to your organization’s specifics. This can save significant time—rather than starting from scratch, you’ll adapt an existing blueprint complete with recommended sections, example metrics, and governance structures.
The roadmap: bringing the charter’s vision to life
Similarly, referencing our 'Developing an identity security program roadmap' article, where the charter answers “why?” and “who?”, the roadmap covers “what?” and “when?” It transforms the charter’s vision and objectives into a phased-approach—what you’ll implement first, which capabilities come next, and how different phases build on each other.
How the roadmap keeps you on track
- Phased deliveries: By grouping milestones into phases—such as our Lifecycle Management and Targeted Certifications milestones—you ensure incremental wins and continuous value for stakeholders.
- Resource planning: It’s easier to schedule staff, budget, and technology upgrades when you have clear timelines. If your marketing group needs advanced workflows by Q3, the roadmap helps everyone see that target.
- Risk management: A roadmap highlights dependencies and potential pinch points (e.g., complex system migrations or new regulatory requirements) so you can preemptively address them.
Download our roadmap templates
If you’d rather not build a roadmap from scratch, we’ve curated two helpful templates:
- Identity Security Program Roadmap Template (Word doc): A more extensive outline for capturing detailed milestones, dependencies, and tasks.
- Identity Security Program Roadmap Template (PPT deck): A streamlined version great for executive updates or team presentations.
Customize them to reflect your priorities—whether that’s faster provisioning, enhanced monitoring, or addressing compliance hot spots like SOX or GDPR.
How these two pillars work together
Imagine your charter as the strategic “mission statement” and your roadmap as the “tactical schedule.” Both are living documents that inform each other:
- The charter refines the roadmap’s priorities: If your program charter states “Reduce manual provisioning tasks by 30% within a year,” that objective influences the roadmap’s first phases (e.g., implementing user-friendly self-service). In turn, the roadmap reveals how quickly those 30% gains might be achievable.
- The roadmap validates the charter’s scope and feasibility: Building out timelines often reveals new constraints, such as budget cycles or skill gaps. You might revisit the charter to adjust deliverables, ensuring they remain realistic.
By revisiting these two documents together each quarter or at key milestones, you keep your identity security efforts tightly aligned with organizational changes—and make sure you’re communicating that alignment clearly to leadership.
Real-world scenario
Let’s say an organization’s executive sponsor defines ambitious goals in their program charter: “Establish consistent user provisioning across 100% of mission-critical apps within 12 months, reduce time-to-provision by 40%, and cut audit findings in half.” That same sponsor works with their program manager to create a phased roadmap that schedules which apps get onboarded in which quarter, when key automation scripts roll out, and how policy modeling can strengthen audits.
After Phase 1, the team sees the new self-service capabilities saving each helpdesk associate 10 hours per week—well ahead of schedule. They update the charter’s success metrics to capture that time savings, and re-prioritize a second phase to bring more high-risk apps in sooner. This ongoing feedback loop ensures no team is stuck re-inventing the wheel, and that leadership sees a direct link between documented goals and tangible progress.
In a nutshell
A solid program charter and a well-structured roadmap are two sides of the same coin—defining your identity security program’s purpose and plotting the journey to realize that purpose. They keep everyone in sync, from your executive sponsor to your system administrators, and they ensure that incremental wins pave the way for lasting gains.
Ready to put this into action? Here’s how to get started:
- Collaborate with leaders from key departments (IT, HR, Finance, etc.) to draft or refine your program charter, including success metrics and funding requirements.
- Lay out your roadmap in phases, matching strategic goals (reducing risk, automating processes) with realistic timelines and resource capacity.
- Leverage our charter and roadmap templates to showcase plans and milestones internally—especially during steering committee updates or quarterly business reviews.
- Tie each short-term project back to the bigger program vision to demonstrate how quick wins feed into long-term strategic success.
And of course, if you missed it, be sure to circle back to our Craft your program strategy article and the first blog in this series on why “program vs. project” matters for identity security. With a clearly documented charter and roadmap, you’ll be well on your way to building (and sustaining) a successful identity security program that keeps pace with your organization’s evolving needs!
