Why is it important to plan project closeout before the project begins?
Steve NauglePermit Specialist| Windstream KDL Inc.Evansville, In, United States
I am a student going to college for Project Management and in one of my books, it stated that it is important to plan for project closeout before the project begins, but the book did not go into depth as to why. Can anyone shed some light on this for me? Thanks in advance. Saving Changes...
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Darrel EricksonProfessor| Wayland Baptist UniversityKapolei, Hi, United States
Steve - At the planning stage it is painfully obvious what the last project team that did something like the new project but did not document it. Low project management maturity model organizations do not have a structure perhaps and it falls to PMs to capture closeout facts and documents. Now to your question:
It can be that projects get staffed with people from functional divisions and they leave projects to return to their shops before the project finishes, to prepare to capture their lessons learned and other project data requires a plan. How easy do you suppose it will be as a PM to get another shop to let a worker time to pony up project information/insights? It might go OK but chances are these employees will be busy with whatever it is they do. Better to capture it while they are a direct report // The other thing that comes to mind is that near the end of a project, when closeout is upon a PM, it is likely a period of intense operations, closeout is 95% documentary in nature and some of the items that are most valuable later, like lessons learned for the next project, might not be a very high on the priority when we are striving to get that final deliverable completed. // Plan close out but be reasonable with the level of detail to capture at close out and my last advice to all PMs everywhere is no matter what the plan details, make sure you set in this task to your close out phase - PM's need to inform functional leaders of the contributions of the people [even contractors outsourced for the project] who worked for your team and throw them a party for the participants - celebrate the project completion. Lastly in the words of Steven Covery it is always effective to START with the END in mind!
I have a different view to the project close out. It is "nice" to capture lessons learnt etc but will have no real effect if the transition from project to operations is not planned out properly.
Often the people on the project are the experts in the new "whatever" and will have an role in its operational life. Planning for the end of the project is more that closing the project it is mostly about the starting of the operational life of the project's product. Who will manage it, support it, where is the operational budget coming from for any extra staff, support costs etc, who is managing the outstanding issues etc. Policies and procedures, operational instructions the list goes on. A project does not just stop it has to have an orderly handover.
I have seen projects morph into ongoing operational organisation units and still called a project because no thought had been given to the operational transition.
Saving Changes...
Darrel EricksonProfessor| Wayland Baptist UniversityKapolei, Hi, United States
I like what Julie is saying about close out and the necessity of handing off the deliverable, the baby, to the new overseers.
I also got to thinking about a thesis I am developing that SOME projects that do not close out on schedule, do not close out because the project personnel are very burdened with operational work during the project, shops need to pull workers back from projects to do other necessary chores but to the point, since a project is a management driven initiative, why not place a caveat in reporting so that these projects, when reporting is done on a projects status/standing, why not list its success against baseline AND offer a constructive date (hours added to baseline completion) that takes into account resource recalls, projects placed on pause, and resource trade offs. Technically, formally the project is behind, but with the constructive date management can see the cost of resource allocations on schedule.
How about that for a thesis at least? Saving Changes...
Wai Mun KooPMO Director| Intergraph PP&MSingapore, Singapore
Steve, if you are asking about the typical tasks in project closure, here it goes.
1. Final check to ensure all project tasks are completed.
2. Sign-off from the project sponsor.
3. Handover project to operation or support.
4. Conduct lessons learned meeting.
5. Conduct project delivery satisfaction survey (optional).
6. Formal communication out to everyone regarding the closure of the project. This includes what will happen after project closure and who is responsible of what (e.g. supporting the project).
7. Release of resources.
Usually, there will be a closure meetin held and some of the above tasks will be performed in this closure meeting. Saving Changes...
