Question

Briefly share your experience with project closeout. Recommend a set of five (5) best practices for closeout. At least one best practice should relate to documentation.

Answer 1

As the name itself suggests, project closure is the last step in Project management and often the most neglected one as well. Project closure plays an important role in making sure that the impression set in the client's mind is a lasting one. Out of many projects I have worked on, there has been one which was perceived by the client to be still open as a formal closure of the project was not carried out. This was a waste of resources from the clients' end and a credibility loss for me. As a project manager, it's important to learn from any mistakes that have been done during the project lifeline, gather feedback, good things that impressed clients and stakeholders. Project closure is the task where these steps are taken and documented for future reuse. This is done so that you as a project manager do not repeat the mistakes and take the good things forward. In business, everything has to be formal, and project closure is that activity which makes sure that the project is transitioned to operations smoothly.

Best practices that can be used for a proper closeout are:

Releasing project team members: In a project closure phase, you must have the details of all individual work with you as a project manager and release the resources from the project so they can be used in other projects. Gather any documents that resources might have for the project for further review.

Releasing suppliers: Suppliers or third party vendors used in the project play an important role in the success of the project. It's important to review whether their commitments are completed and then formally close the agreement with supplier/s.

Monitoring sponsors and obtaining feedback: This step is where you review the agreement set out at the start of the project with the sponsor and whether key areas identified as conditions of satisfaction were met or not. You document the results for future use. The document should contain the feedback and results of the project completed.

Close the agreement formally: Once you are done with the document, you send out a formal note asking for formal closure to the client. Once acknowledged, the project can be closed formally from your end. This step is crucial taking into account that no formal acknowledgment can mean that the project is not closed from a client's perspective.

Conduct project retrospective or managing quality or project: This task is undertaken to take feedback from the project team for process improvement. This is more of a "Lessons learned" meeting where we can look at what went well and what could be improved in a future project. Once this task is completed, you complete the Overall transition plan and transition the project to the operations team.