Where this came from
This process did not exist under this name before the Eighth Edition. Here is what it was called, and where the previous write-up still lives:
Initiate Project or Phase is the eighth edition’s authorizing step: the point at which a project — or a phase within one — is formally sanctioned, and the project manager is given the standing to commit organizational resources to it. The project charter is still the document that does this, alongside the assumption log.
What changed
This is Develop Project Charter under a new name, and the new name carries the change. The previous set framed the process around producing one artifact, once, at the start of a project. The eighth edition frames it around the act of authorization, and explicitly allows that act to recur — at phase boundaries, or wherever a project’s development approach makes it necessary.
The practical consequence is that re-chartering stops being an exception that needs justifying. A project that clears a stage gate, changes sponsor, or moves into a materially different phase can run this process again, and the guide treats that as ordinary rather than as a deviation.
Two new tools worth noticing
The tools and techniques list grew from four entries to six, and both additions are concrete rather than cosmetic: a responsibility assignment matrix, and a project canvas. Neither was listed against this process before.
The canvas is the more telling of the two. A one-page canvas is the kind of chartering artifact that lightweight and adaptive teams were already using in practice; naming it here brings it inside the standard instead of leaving it as a tailoring decision made off the page. The guide is direct that charters on adaptive projects range from short vision statements to moderately detailed documents, and the tool list now matches that.
If you learned the previous set
The substance you already know still holds. The charter authorizes the work, names the project manager, and should exist before planning starts. What needs updating is the name, the range of moments when the process legitimately runs, and the fact that the tools now sanction the lighter-weight approaches the previous list left out.
ITTO at a glance
All three lists are formally open-ended — every ITTO column in the eighth edition ends in “Etc.”, so none of them is a closed set to be memorized. PMBOK® Guide — Eighth Edition, §2.1.6.1. What changed in the ITTOs, across all 40 processes.