COEPD – Center of Excellence for Professional Development Happy Learning
The Project Closure Report is the final document produced for the project and is used by senior management to assess the success of the project, identify best practices for future projects, resolve all open issues, and formally close the project.
Contents
Document Version
Includes the details like Project Name, Project sponsor, Project Manager, Date
Document Approval Signatures
It has signatures of the Project Manage and the Project Sponsor along with the name and date
Check list
This is the Project Managers report to the Project Sponsor stating how well the project has performed against the Project at this time all project documentation should be up-to-date.
Fields of document
- Achievement of the Projects Benefits
Contains List of define benefits and achieved benefits
- Performance Against Original Schedule
Describes how the project performed against the baseline schedule. IF there was any acceleration or delay in the project the reasons for the same can be mentioned here
- Performance Against Original Forecast Costs & Resources
Describes how the resources and budget were utilized in the project. If there was any change in the resource utilization and the budget that occurred during the project it can be mentioned here
- Impact of Approved Changes& Raised Exceptions
Lists any changes that occurred in terms of cost, quality and scope .If there are any changes then the reason would be mentioned. Also the change log would be checked to see if the all the changes were managed or if there are any changes foreseen
- Summary of Key Project Issues & Resolutions
Review the Issue Log and comment on those issues that had the largest impact on
the project. Also list how such issues can be avoided in the future projects
- Lessons Learned
List all the lessons learnt both positive and negative and what would you like to do differently in the next project
- Project Managers Commentary
You can add any additional comments that are worth sharing with the project sponsor and the higher Management
- Future Benefits Realisation
Mention who will be responsible for monitoring and measuring the benefits mentioned in document
It will contain the details like benefit type, how will it be measured, who will take the ownership and when will it be released
Most of the times as the project completes, the sponsors and the team both jump to the next project and this document is neglected .However, ignoring the process altogether may mean missing some important benefits. Some habit around a closing exercise will benefit the organization and serve the stakeholders well in the long run.
Along with conducting a lessons learned session, getting approval for deliverables, and resolving outstanding issues, a key closing activity involves the collection, organization, and storage or archiving of project information.
Benefits
- Retrieval of project Communication
Along with conducting a lessons learned session, getting approval for deliverables, and resolving outstanding issues, a key closing activity involves the collection, organization, and storage or archiving of project information. For Example : For an organization that just keeps 6 months of emails, going through the archives for a query on a project that was delivered 10 months ago will be really difficult
- Captured taught while people still have them
Team members and SMEs who move from project to project often have invaluable information not just about things that are likely to be captured in a lessons learned exercise, but also how something was done, what options were considered, or various experiments that may have been tried. For Example: If there is no closing document and you are asked what has been accomplished in the previous project it would be very difficult to have acknowledgement of the intangible deliverables.
Along with conducting a lessons learned session, getting approval for deliverables, and resolving outstanding issues, a key closing activity involves the collection, organization, and storage or archiving of project information.
- Retained context for project decisions
Capturing project information as part of closing typically includes market, financial, or other data that has gone into project decisions. While the decisions may be long remembered after a project is finished, it can be difficult to recreate the data context that lead to those decisions. When future projects require a decision, it may be helpful to know what the data looked like at the time a decision was made on a past project. Closing captures that snapshot of the data as it looked at the time, providing the context for project decisions that were made at the time.
Project information and data that is likely to be helpful in the future often goes beyond the thoughts and reflections captured as part of a lessons learned exercise. Without this data there is a missed opportunity to easily go back to refresh memories on what happened in order to answer questions or get input into new decisions.
