Question

Please answer the following questions regarding the Close Project or Phase process and project closeout.

a.   What are the key activities of Close Project or Phase?

b.   Why is formal acceptance and closure such an important output of the closing processes?          

c.   What is the purpose of lessons learned during project closeout? Why is it important for project managers to get this information documented? Discuss the successes or failures you’ve had documenting lessons learned on projects you’ve worked on in the past.

Answer 1

aWhat are the key activities of Close Project or Phase?

There are numerous important activities that are performed at the project closure phase. Their details are as follows:

Acceptance of Deliverables: This is the most important action that is taken during the project closure phase. The project deliverables  are reviewed by the customer according to the agreed acceptance criteria, and formally accepted.

Finalize the Lessons Learned: It is important that lessons learned during the project are formally completed in the project closure phase, before the project team is assigned to other projects, or relieved. In order that the lessons learned are properly documented, a questionnaire may be circulated to the stakeholders for completion.

Project Report: A project report is completed at the project closure phase that is submitted to the project sponsor. This document essentially includes the project summary, starting from initiation till closure.

b. Why is formal acceptance and closure such an important output of the closing processes?

The closure of the resources behind the project means the financial closure of the project. This is important because financial closure must be completed before the unused resources assigned to that project can be returned to the organization for use on other projects.

These processes need to be completed if the project is not only going to be successful, but is going to be the seed of future successful projects because all of the lessons gained through experience can now be used to prevent the project manager from having to “reinvent the wheel” the next time.

c. What is the purpose of lessons learned during project closeout? Why is it important for project managers to get this information documented? Discuss the successes or failures you?ve had documenting lessons learned on projects you?ve worked on in the past.

The purpose of lessons learned is to share and use knowledge derived from experience to:

a) Promote the recurrence of desirable outcomes

   b) Preclude the recurrence of undesirable outcomes

The project manager documents the lessons learned because identification of actions that will be taken as a result of the lesson learned, and follow-up to ensure that appropriate actions were taken.

Some of the failures in my past projects are:

There are insufficient team members to complete the work that has been committed.

Requirements to handle potential problems or more challenging situations that might occur are never considered

Many hardware and software issues during the design and execution

Improper training to design team.