Project Closure

Understanding Project Closure

Project closure refers to a set of tasks that are required to formally end the project.
There are two kinds of projects that you need to close formally:

Completed Projects : A project that has met its completion criteria falls into this
category.
Terminated Projects: A project that was terminated before its completion falls into this
category. A project can be terminated at various stages for various reasons.
Following are some examples:
– The project management plan is not approved for whatever reason
– The project has been executing but you have run out of resources and no more
resources are available
– The project has been cancelled because it was going nowhere
– The project has been indefinitely postponed because there is not a large enough market
for the product it would produce
 Understanding Project Closure
The process of closure consists of two kinds of tasks:
– Establish procedures to co-ordinate the activities needed to close the project
– Implement the procedures
There are two aspects of closing a project:
Administrative closure:
– Performing administrative closure of a project includes obtaining final
acceptance for the project deliverables, analyzing the project’s success or
failure, gathering lessons learned, archiving project information and releasing
project resources.
– How will these activities be performed and coordinated, any by whom? For
that, you establish an administrative closure procedure for your project that
will take into account the relevant policies and procedures of the performing
organization
Contract Closure
Contract closure includes settling and closing all the contracts associated with the
project. To carry out and co-ordinate the activities needed for the contract
closure, you define the contract closure procedure
Understanding Project Closure
Close
1. Establish procedures for administrative
Project
closure and contract closure
2. Implement Administrative Closure

Contract
1. Implement Contract Closure
Closure

Fig. The process to close the project

 Integrated Change Control Process
Input Tools and Techniques Output
 Project Management Plan  Project Management  Administrative
 Deliverables Methodology closure procedure
 Work Performance  Project Management  Formal Acceptance
Information Information Systems for the final product
 Contract Documentation  Expert Judgment  Updates to
 Organizational Process organizational
Assets process assets
 Enterprise Environmental  Contract closure
Factors procedrue
 Output of the Project Closure
The output of the close project process contains three
kinds of elements
– Closing procedures
– Acceptance of the project deliverables by the customer
and
– Archival of project-related documents
 Output of the Project Closure
Administrative Closure procedure:
– This procedure specifies the step-by-step methodology for the
administrative closure of the project, which includes specifying all the
necessary activities, roles and responsibilities of the project team
member who will participate in the closure process. The activities
defined by this procedure include the following:
• Activities to define the requirement for getting approval from the
stakeholders, such as customers and the sponsor on the project
deliverables and the approved changes which were supposed to be
implemented
• Activities that are necessary to satisfy the project completion or exit
criteria
• Activities related to the project completion, such as:
– Confirm that the project has met all requirements
– Verify that all deliverables have been provided and accepted
– Verify that the completion or exit criteria have been met
 Output of the Project Closure
Formal Acceptance for the Final Product:
– This includes handing over the final product to the
customer and getting formal acceptance for it –
for example, in the form of a receipt that contains
statement to the effect that the requirement of
the project have been met, including the terms or
the contracts
 Output of the Project Closure
Updates to Organizational process Assets:
– Acceptance Documentations
• This is the documentation that proves that the fulfillment of the project
requirement have been confirmed, completion of the project has been verified and
the product has been formally accepted by the customer.
– Project Closure Documentation
• In Additions to the acceptance documentation, you should also archive the other
project closure documents, such as the closure procedures and the handing-over of
project deliverables to an operation group. If the project was terminated, then the
formal documentation indicating why the project was terminated should be
included in the archive
– Project Files Archive
• This includes the documents from the projects’ lifecycle such as the project
management plan, risk register, planned risk responses, and baselines for cost,
schedule, scope and quality
– Lessons-Learned database
• The documentation on lessons learned should be saved in the organizations
knowledge database so that future projects can benefit from it
– Contract Closure Procedure
• This procedure is developed to formally close all contracts associated with the
project. It specifies a step-by-step methodology to execute activities needed to
close the contract. The roles and responsibilities of the team members who will be
involved in the closure process are also specified.
 The Finishing Touch – Reviewing
the isproject
Part of the administrative closure to analyze project success or failure. You
can accomplish this by collecting and generating the project evaluation
information, such as what went well and what did not
Some of this information already exists in the work performance reports.
However, the final information can be gathered in various ways, such as a
post-project review meetings with the team or a questionnaire
The most important output of the review are the lessons learned.
The review should be comprehensive and should cover the following:
– Both the technical and non-technical components
– Both positive and negative aspects – that is, the things that went well and the
things that did not go well
– All stages and phases of the project
The Finishing Touch – Releasing the
Resources
For the effective and efficient use of the organizational resources, it is
imperative that they be release in an efficient and proper manner.
The release procedure might be included in the resource planning – for
example, the staff management plan should address the issue of releasing
the human resources
Following are some suggestions to consider for properly releasing the human
resources:
– Although it is possible that different team members will be released at
different times, at the project closure you should organize some closure
events to honor and than the project team members, including the
contractors, for their contributions.
– Plan ahead, and do not wait until the last minute. Communicate with the
functional manager ahead of time about when a staff member is going to be
released
– Work closely with you organizations human resource department, which
might have some guidelines or procedure that you need to follow
– Write recommendation letters for team members who have made the
outstanding contributions to the project