Project Closure

On August 20, 2009

Following the completion of all project deliverable and acceptance by the customer, a successful project will have met its objectives and be ready for formal closure. Project Closure is the last phase in the project and must be conducted formally so that the business benefits delivered by the project are fully realized by the customer.

Perform Project Closure

Project Closure involves undertaking a series of activities to wind up the project, including:

Identifying any outstanding items (activities, risks or issues)
Producing a hand-over plan to transfer the deliverable to the customer environment
Listing the activities required to hand over documentation, cancel supplier contracts and release project resources to the business
Communicating closure to all stakeholders and
interested parties.

A Project Closure Report is submitted to the Customer and/or Project Sponsor for approval. The Project Manager is then responsible for undertaking each of the activities identified within the Project Closure Report on time and according to budget. The project is closed only when all activities identified in the Project Closure Report have been completed.

Review Project Completion

The final activity undertaken on any project is a review of its overall success by an independent resource. Success is determined by how well it performed against the defined objectives and conformed to the management processes outlined in the planning phase. To determine performance, a number of questions are posed. For example:

Did it result in the benefits defined in the Business Case?
Did it achieve the objectives outlined in the Terms of Reference?
Did it operate within the scope of the Terms of Reference?
Did the deliverable meet the criteria defined in the Quality Plan
Was it delivered within the schedule outlined in the Project Plan?
Was it delivered within the budget outlined in the Financial Plan?

To determine conformance, a review is undertaken of the level of conformity of the project activities to the management processes outlined in the Quality Plan. The above results, key achievements and lessons learned are documented within a Post Implementation Review report and presented to the Project Sponsor for approval.