Summary


Although project closure involves many important activities, it often falls off the radar for many project managers. Anxious as you may be to move on to your next assignment, your current project should not just cease to exist before you complete project closure activities.

You need to complete the project closure processes whenever the project ends, whether it was successfully completed or canceled . If you are working with any vendors , you need to complete contract closure by confirming that the terms of the contract have been met and all deliverables have been accepted. Contract closure includes written notification to the vendor that the terms of the contract have been met.

Although you may find some of the tasks tedious at times, administrative closure involves several key elements. As project manager, you create a project archive in either paper or electronic format to store a copy of all project documentation. A final review session with the stakeholders is scheduled to obtain formal acceptance and sign-off on the project. The project manager also organizes and facilitates a review session with project team members to discuss all aspects of the project life cycle, both negative and positive. The output of this session is a formal lessons learned document that can be used to replicate your successes and avoid the pitfalls you encountered in your project. Project documentation such as user guides or systems manuals as well as all ongoing maintenance and support of the system need to be turned over to the appropriate operational staff. Finally, as their work is completed, you release the project team members to their respective functional organizations. Now you are ready to move on to your next project.

Perhaps the most important element of project closure is the lessons-learned element. It is here that you identify where things went wrong, how you fixed them and what you'd consider as alternatives in the future. Lessons learned isn't helpful in the here and now, but it's extremely useful for those who have a similar project and who will come back to yours to see what kinds of issues you ran into. If you're into protecting the future, lessons learned is an endeavor that will be very worthwhile for you.




Project+ Study Guide (Exam PK0-002)
IT Project+ Study Guide, 2nd Edition (PKO-002)
ISBN: 0782143180
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 156

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