Project document retention standards for completed projects
Sarah BaetenProgram Manager| SECURA InsuranceDe Pere, Wi, United States
Hello! I'm just wondering how long everyone keeps documentation from closed projects. We have some very old documentation that I would like to eliminate and I would also like to put a standard in place for how long documentation is kept before it is deleted from the PMO's document repository. I'm getting a lot of push back from individuals in other areas who say they need that documentation. I've stated that anything that needs to be kept or that is "living" documentation should be moved into the location where all other information for that product or system is housed. I’m looking for input around what other companies are doing with their completed project documentation and maybe some insight into how you decided that’s the approach you were going to take. Thank you in advance! Saving Changes...
My short answer is that it depends upon the type of documentation and who needs it. Short answers aren't really my strong suit, but I agree that living documentation should be kept in the relevant repository, not stored and maintained by the PMO (unless it is specific to the PMO).
My last employer was publicly traded and had policies around our PM processes that we were audited on, for capital projects. Projects were generally audited within a year of finishing; we kept files until after the audit. I generally kept project files, in my own folders, until systems changed enough that they became irrelevant. The company's legal department also provided guidelines for how long to keep data - depending upon the type of data, there were requirements, from our legal and operations departments, for how long we had to keep it and/or how soon we should delete it.
At my current employer, our PMO is only a couple of years old and we're still maturing. We recently went private and don't have audit requirements, but there are existing repositories for policies, procedures, and technical documentation. Legal retains copies of contracts. Instead of maintaining a repository of lessons learned documentation, that nobody uses because you have to know where to look to be able to find actionable information, we've created a list of actionable items from lessons learned that apply to "future" projects, and are coming up on our first review cycle to determine if anything needs to be added or removed from the list.
We're too new to start formally deleting project documentation, but as we roll out value realization processes we will formalize a retention process for project documents, like charters, to support tracking post-implementation value realization. I can see the retention period varying based on payback period and how long we track value for what has been delivered. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Sarah,
here in Germany retention depends on legal requirements, for core documents it is at least 10 years.
If there is a PMO, they could store it, but given the average lifetime of a PMO being 2 years this might not be a sustainable solution. Often the accounting department takes care about archiving, there are archiving solutions on the market.
Example: working for IBM, we had a subcontractor working on the project and charging her hours thru (electronic but signed as printed paper) timesheets per month.
7 years after the project, financial authorities opened a case against her and asked IBM to provide evidence. IBM had a archiving center in Berlin which could provide micro fiches to authorities.
As my colleagues have said, "it depends". The terminology you want to look up though is "records retention". Regulations vary by the applicable regulatory agency, type of information, etc.
As Thomas said, financials are typically 7 years, but not every document with financial data are technically financial records so the first thing you need to do is understand what are records that require retention, and then the standards or guidelines for different documentation types.
Many of the working files you use can generally be 5S'd once no longer in use, but in some industries you may be required to retain a lot of documents not required in other industries should there be a regulatory audit, safety investigation, etc. Saving Changes...
We need to differentiate between documentation required for legal or other compliance retention purposes from that used to maintain, support and evolve the product/service.
The former should be archived according to the standard retention procedures at a company whereas the latter should be transitioned from the project team to the operations or other "business as usual" owners.
Kiron Saving Changes...
Sarah BaetenProgram Manager| SECURA InsuranceDe Pere, Wi, United States
Thank you everyone. This is all very helpful! Saving Changes...
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