There are two kinds of project closings: when the project is terminated before completing all work and when all the work of the project completes. In the project closing process, you will verify that all the work has completed that needed to be completed according to the project’s requirements. You will archive the project’s data, receive formal acceptance for the project, perform a project lessons learned, and release the resources on the project (including the project manager!). You do this even when a project has terminated early—the process establishes a record of where it ended and if by some chance it gets picked up again (yes, it can happen), then it will be much easier to restart. If the project is terminated early, it is especially important to perform a lessons learned.
You can use the following steps to close a project:
Review the project plan to ensure that all phases have been completed to satisfaction. You might also conduct an independent audit for the project.
Gather measurements and reports that describe project performance.
Prove project completion or provide justification why the deliverable was not needed or the phase did not complete with all expected deliverables.
Receive approval from the customer or sponsor for project closure.
Archive the project files.
Hold lessons learned as soon as possible near project close. Try to get participation from as many stakeholders as possible. You might have to request time from team members who may have already been reassigned to another project.
Document the lessons learned in a nonjudgmental way, and share the information with the rest of your organization. Try to implement as many improvements in other projects as possible. If you found tasks or processes that should be added to other projects, think about including those tasks or processes to project schedule templates or project plans.
Contract closeout is part of Procurement Management but it is closely related to project closing, and is probably worth talking about here. You would perform many of the same functions to close the contract as the project itself, but you would ensure the terms of the contract are completed, including ensuring final payment and written approval. You will make sure you keep a contract file (especially if there could be legal repercussions at some point), and you might perform a procurement audit to create a lessons learned on the contract and to help rate the vendor for future considerations. Contract closeout would be performed prior to the full project closure and maybe one of the inputs to it.
You can use the following steps to close a project:
Review the project plan to ensure that all phases have been completed to satisfaction. You might also conduct an independent audit for the project.
Gather measurements and reports that describe project performance.
Prove project completion or provide justification why the deliverable was not needed or the phase did not complete with all expected deliverables.
Receive approval from the customer or sponsor for project closure.
Archive the project files.
Hold lessons learned as soon as possible near project close. Try to get participation from as many stakeholders as possible. You might have to request time from team members who may have already been reassigned to another project.
Document the lessons learned in a nonjudgmental way, and share the information with the rest of your organization. Try to implement as many improvements in other projects as possible. If you found tasks or processes that should be added to other projects, think about including those tasks or processes to project schedule templates or project plans.
Contract closeout is part of Procurement Management but it is closely related to project closing, and is probably worth talking about here. You would perform many of the same functions to close the contract as the project itself, but you would ensure the terms of the contract are completed, including ensuring final payment and written approval. You will make sure you keep a contract file (especially if there could be legal repercussions at some point), and you might perform a procurement audit to create a lessons learned on the contract and to help rate the vendor for future considerations. Contract closeout would be performed prior to the full project closure and maybe one of the inputs to it.