Developing an Effective Closeout Survey

Mike has more than 12 years of project management experience spanning a variety of industries. He has acted as a consultant for federal, state and local government agencies; set up a PMO and managed strategic projects for a major automotive company in Australia; and currently is a Senior Project Manager in the Northern Colorado financial industry. Mike is PMP certified, a veteran of the USAF and has an MBA in finance and accounting.

  Communications Management   Lessons Learned   Risk Management  

What is the most neglected phase of a project? If you answered the closeout phase, you wouldn’t get much of an argument from most project managers. Given the fast-paced environment within which most project managers operate, it is only natural that the closeout phase of the project lifecycle is often addressed in a rush--if it is addressed at all.

The next project is almost always ramping up, putting high demands on our time and attention before the last one has a chance to properly wind down. Many times it is simply “Gain the end users’ acceptance and move on!” But to be the best project manager, PMO and organization possible, we need to learn from our mistakes as well as reinforce things done well. So don’t neglect the closeout phase! To paraphrase Neil Young,“It’s better to closeout than to fade away.” (That was bad, I know!)

While there are many aspects to a robust closeout phase, let’s hone in on the post-project review and documentation of lessons learned since they typically get pushed to the side. How can we easily and efficiently capture these cycles of learning? A closeout survey using one of the many online survey tools available today is one approach to consider. It is easy to implement, repeatable, customizable, anonymous and valuable for getting better at what we do.

So where do we start?
First, …

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