Close Project or Phase and its importance: In this article, you can get all relevant information about Close Project or Phase process and its importance including Inputs, Tools & Techniques and Outputs and important steps for closing project or phase based on latest edition of PMBOK.
Close Project or Phase and its importance in Project Management
Introduction to Close Project or Phase Process
Close project or Phase is
the last one process of Project Integration management knowledge area and part
of Closing process group which includes finalizing all activities for formally
completing the project, phase or contract. Project closing contains Close Project
or Phase and close procurement.
Process Group
|
Knowledge Area
|
Closing
|
Project Integration Management
|
7 processes of Project Integration Management
What is Close Project or Phase process in Project Management?
Close Project or Phase is the final
phase of the life cycle of the project which involves the process of formally
closing the project and reporting to the project owner about the level of
success. Close Project or Phase process starts with the project closure report.
It is the responsibility of the project sponsor either to accept or reject
project closure report.
Close Project or Phase process
also includes handover remaining deliverables to the customers, release team and
physical resources, close contracts with supplier, forward final documentation
to the business, and inform stakeholders about the closure of the project. One
major key point needs to understand that close procurement process must have
been completed to complete the Close Project or close phase process.
Close Project
or Phase process is performed only once in the project when deliverables are accepted,
and project or phase is finished.
Why Close Project or Phase process is important?
The importance of Close Project
or Phase process is that this process delivers the final product and obtain formal
sign-off from the customer on the final product and document lesson learned by
project team which will be more helpful for future similar kind of project. Point
to be noted that lesson learned are documented throughout the project not just
in the closure stage. The major benefits of Close Project or Phase process is
that, in this process project or phase information is archived, documentation
of lesson learned, the planned work is completed, release of organizational
assets and organizational team resources are released to pursue new assignments.
The Close Project or Phase
process also establishes the procedures to investigate and document the reasons
for actions taken if a project is terminated before completion. In order to
successfully achieve this, the project manager needs to engage all the proper
stakeholders in the process.
What are the steps of Project or Phase closure?
- Confirm work is done as per project or phase requirements
- Confirm that contracts are completed
- Gain formal acceptance of the project & deliverables
- Complete financial closure
- Hand off completed product
- Achieve customer’s feedback about the project
- Complete final performance reporting
- Index and archive records
- Collect & document final lessons learned from all stakeholders
- Release the resources for future endeavours.
Inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs of the process Close Project or Phase
What are the inputs of Close Project or Phase Process?
Close Project or Phase: Inputs
1. Project charter
The project charter includes
information about the success criteria of the project, requirements of approval
and the person name who will be responsible for sign off on the project.
Usually project sponsor holds responsibility of signing off.
2. Project Management Plan
Project management plan is major
input of Close Project or Phase which consists important instructions to close
out project or phase and it is used as a major source of reference to make
decisions whether project or phase can be closed. Project management plan is
made up of several documents and all its components are an input to this
process.
3. Project
Documents
Project documents that are inputs
to Close Project or Phase Process includes:
- Assumption log
Assumption is something that one
can believe to be true during project handling. Assumption log consists record
of all the assumptions and constraints which will help the project manager
providing important information such as estimates, technical specifications, schedule,
costs, risks etc.
- Basis of estimates
Basis of estimates evaluates how the
estimation of durations, cost, resources, and cost control compared to the
actual results.
- Change log
Change
log includes the status of all change requests throughout the project.
- Issue log
Issue log is used to make sure
that all issues have been closed and there is no any pending issue which will
affect the project.
- Milestone list
The milestone includes final
dates on which the project milestones have been accomplished.
- Lesson learned register
The project team need to record
lesson learned throughout the project or phase and it needs to be edited to
remove junk or duplicate problem/issues for finalization before being entered
the lessons learned repository.
- Quality reports
Quality reports provides information
about all quality assurance issues escalated by team, all quality assurance
issues managed by the team, recommended actions for improvement, and the
summary of findings from the control quality process.
- Quality control measurements
Quality control measurements records
results of control quality activities and validate compliance with the quality
requirements.
- Project communications
Project communications is the
project documents which record all communications that have used during project
handling from start to finish.
- Requirement documentation
Requirements documentation demonstrates
compliance with the project scope.
- Risk register
Risk register is one of the
important project documents of Close project or Phase process which provides
information about individual or overall risks found during the project from
initiating to closing.
- Risk report
Risk report includes status of
risk and is used to check that all risks has been sorted out and there are no any
pending risks to mitigate.
4. Accepted deliverables
Deliverables are the whole
purpose of undertaking the project. Deliverables should be acceptable to
relevant stakeholders before deploying. Accepted deliverables include delivery
receipts, approved product specifications and work performance documents.
Partial or interim deliverables may also be included for phased or cancelled
projects.
5. Business documents
Business documents are inputs to
the Develop Project Charter Process. Business documents can be used by project manager,
but it cannot be updated by him/her. Business documents includes:
- Business case
The business case is something
that justifies undertaking the project consisting appropriate information about
the business need and the cost benefit analysis. Project manager and project
team needs to work very early on this in the project life cycle.
- Benefits management plan
The benefits management plan is
the document which is used to get information on how and when the benefits will
be delivered from the project. It is also used to measure whether the benefits
of the project were achieved as planned and this benefit will continue beyond
the project’s lifetime.
6. Agreements
Here, agreements mean contracts. Terms
and conditions of the contract included in the procurement management plan
contains information about requirements for formal procurement closure.
7. Procurement documentation
All procurement documentation is gathered
and filed for the purpose of formally closing the contract.
8. Organizational process assets
- Project or phase closure guidelines
- Competences and skill sets
- Configuration management knowledge base
- Lessons learned
What are the tools and techniques used for Close Project or Phase process?
Close Project or Phase: Tools & Techniques
1. Expert judgment
Expertise
should be considered from individuals or groups with knowledge of audit,
management control, legal and procurement, legislation & regulations.
2.
Data Analysis
Data analysis techniques include:
- Regression analysis
Regression analysis technique is
used to establish statistical relationship between two different project
variables. This technique is used by the various business improvement processes
to measure how well a process works. This interrelationships between different
project variables that contributed to the project outcomes to improve
performance on future projects.
- Document analysis
Document analysis is used to extract
project information in order to record in lesson learned which will be more beneficial
for future projects.
- Variance analysis
Variance analysis shows the
variation between planned performance metrics (e.g. scope, schedule, cost etc.)
and actual performance of the project. This helps to identify cause of
differences between baseline and actual performance. This variance also can be
used to improve the metrics of the organization.
- Trend analysis
Trend
analysis is a technique which uses historical results to find out future outcome.
This analysis validates the organizational models and to implement any adjustments
needed for future projects.
3. Meetings
Meetings
may be virtual or face-to face and attendees may include project team members
and involved/ affected stakeholders by the project. Discussion points in meetings
includes accepted deliverables, formal completion of contracts, exit criteria
met, gather lesson learned, stakeholder’s satisfaction, knowledge transfer from
the project and celebrating success.
Types
of meetings include:
- Close-out reporting meetings
- Customer wrap-up meetings
- Lessons learned meetings
- Celebration meetings
What are the outputs of Close Project or Phase process?
Close
Project or Phase Process: Outputs
1. Project document updates
In
this process, all project documents updated and marked as final versions as a
result of project closure. Final information on phase or project closure can be
included in the finalized lessons learned register which consists information
on benefits management, project and development life cycles, issue and risk
management methods, stakeholder engagement etc.
2. Final product, service or result transition
This
is one of the most important outputs of Close Project or Phase process which
includes the transition of delivered product, service, or result by the project
to operational team that will operate, maintain, and support it throughout its
life cycle.
3. Final report
Final
report is the phase or project closure reports which starts with summary level description.
Final reports may include various important objectives and summaries such as
scope objectives (criteria used for evaluating scope & completion evidences),
schedule objectives (planned & actual dates), cost objectives (acceptable cost
range, actual costs incurred and reason for variance), quality objectives (criteria
used for evaluating the project & product quality and variance information), summary of project
performance, summary of process used to achieve benefits and business needs, summary
of issues or risk addressed during project handling.
4. Organizational process asset updates
Organizational
process assets that are updated include:
- Project documents
Project
documents gathers information about activities of project such as project management
and change management.
- Operational and support documents
New
documents or updates to existing documents required for maintaining, operating
and supporting the product or service delivered by the project.
- Project or phase closure documents
Formal
documents that records the final completion of the project or phase and transition
of completed project or phase deliverables to operational team.
In
worst case, if the project terminated before completion then in that case,
formal documentation includes the reason of earlier termination of the project and
formalizes the procedures for the transfer of the complete and incomplete deliverables
of the cancelled project to others team or groups.
- Lessons learned repository
For
the use of future similar kind of project, lessons learned, and knowledge achieved
throughout the project which were maintained in lesson learned register are
transferred to the lessons learned repository.
Conclusion
Most
hopefully, you would like this information, and this chapter is very much
important for candidates who are preparing for PMP examination because ,nearly 15 questions can be asked from this chapter in PMP examination. Every project
manager needs to have good idea on Close Project or Phase process for
formal closure of contract and project.
Close Project or Phase and close procurement are different and
holds different purposed. Close Project or Phase is one of the final process of
project integration management whereas close procurement belongs to procurement
knowledge area.
Next article will be about “Project Scope Management”
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