Close Projects: How to close a project

Sankar
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How to close a project

Close Projects: How to close a project?

“Close projects” is an essential course of action, for every project irrespective of its size. In every project management, project closure is as significant as other developments. The project which has been engaged by your organisation for successful implementation bears no value, unless and until it is closed in the same manner with the planned official procedures. A project closure report is a file which sanctions the closure of the project. The project manager will be responsible for handing over the closure report to the client.
As project closure is as necessary as starting it, let’s have a look at project closing activities:-

Get proper customer sign-off

Once you have successfully delivered your project work, it doesn’t mean that you have finished your project. It is recommended that you should get proper customer sign-off on the project provided. Only if the customer sends adequate sign-off, it can be determined to be sufficiently complete now.

Project Management software tasks for you to “Close projects”

As part of closing your project work, it requires the following activities in your project management software. This procedure may be different for different software management tools used by your organisation.

  • Check and close all the checklists for the projects. Also, make sure the statuses of the individual objects are closed.
  • Close the open purchase requisitions and purchase orders.
  • Update all the goods receipt for the project purchase orders.
  • Complete all the project financial settlements before closure.
  • Complete the invoice verifications.
  • Check and close the tasks.
  • Complete the phase approval document and complete the phased closure.
  • It is imperative to check whether there are other projects settle costs to the current project before closing.
  • Check all customer billing is completed, sales orders closed.
  • Check the assigned plant maintenance orders are closed.
  • Ensure you had adjusted the allocated budget or return the unused project. The rule is budget should be equal to the actual expenditure at the end of the project.
  • Change the planned costs and forecasts related your project.
  • Remove the future capacity planning values. Demands if applicable.
  • Check whether final assets are created and set ready for depreciation for investment projects.
  • You need to take actions for proper handover of the equipment for maintenance with appropriate documentation
  • Ensure the warranty documents for the equipment are handed over to the maintenance team, with recommended maintenance planning.

Assessing your product range

While you are planning your products in the beginning stage, you are required to assess your product range in a suitable matter. It would be the best if your product range should be able to meet a higher percentage of range. It’s only after proper assessment of your product range; it could be determined that the project is complete now.
Procuring third-party contract closure
In case, if you’ve engaged the services of a third-party to work on your project, and now the work is over, you are required to close those third-party contracts. Just the once, you are sure that your project is not functioning or finished now and you had delivered the same to your clients successfully, the contracts should be closed. Ultimately, these contacts would serve no purpose, once they are given successfully to the clients.

Compiling the project files before you “Close projects”

Once you have completed your project and delivered the same to the clients, the next step is to collect all the project-related files and pass them to the principal stakeholders of your organisation. You should work on documenting the files and important papers which can be used for reference purposes. In this way, the recorded files could be utilised in the future too.
Those who do a great job closing their projects officially leave their fellow team associates inspired towards getting occupied and doing best things for future projects. A well-finished project will move satisfactory credentials associated with it that anyone who needs to learn from. Furthermore, they can work on the conclusions in the future being able to do so, and without having to shape it out from any other source.

Important Steps to Follow To Successfully Close Projects

Project closure is one of the things that many projects do not pay much attention to. The fact is that this holds a very important place in the execution of the project. Just like the other procedures involved in project management, proper execution of project closure adds value to the organization. It is important for the team members to have sound knowledge about the activities to be performed in the closing stage of the project.

Getting a formal sign-off from customer

Mere delivering the deliverable such as services, products, or result to customers does not really imply that the project is closed. What an organization need, is to obtain a formal sign off from its customer on the deliverable, that are delivered to them. Once the customer signs off, it makes the project complete.

Final analysis of product scope

An organization needs to clarify that the product scope is analyzed during the planning stage, in the way it was planned. It is required that the features stated in the product scope meet completely. Once this happens, a project can be stated as complete.

Releasing resources

The release of resources, so that it can be put to further use, is an important task that needs to be completed. This activity has to be performed by the project manager post delivering all the deliverables and getting formal sign off from customers. This activiy is a must before you close projects.One thing that is needed is that a project has to follow all those policies that are mandatory to be performed by the organization while freeing the resources.

Closure of other contracts

There is a possibility that an organization may be working with a subcontractor or 3rd party vendor. In such a case it is required that any existing contracts with them should be closed. Keeping them open will be of no value /for an organization. So, after producing deliverables, and delivering them to end customers, all such contracts need to be closed.

Indexing of project files

Once the deliverables are handed back to the customer and received a sign off from the customer, it is required to efficiently compile all the files of the project. Once this is done, it can be sent to the complete list of major stakeholders.

Close Projects: Documenting the lessons learned

Post completion of the project by performing all the above tasks, it is now required to document all the lessons that are learned from the project. close projects after documenting the lessons learnt. Learning the above things proves to be beneficial in keeping the budget under control. The learning you get can be used as a reference for upcoming projects.

Some of the things that can be learned while learning the documentation are:

  • situations for modification of requests that were rejected or accepted,
  • schedule control history, and
  • cost control

Conclusion

Whether the size of your business project is small or big, a proper close project step assists in performing better on upcoming projects. It is equally important as initiating the project. Unless the project is closed properly, it remains incomplete at the end of project manager. Ignoring this important process can fail to make the type of impression as the organization wanted from it. These tips will definitely help in closing the project in an effective manner. When implementing these tips, it is important to involve all the stakeholders during the process. To watch videos on ONEBUSINESS project management, please check the Facebook page. 

As you know, the closing of projects is considered as an imperative step in any project management. In all projects, there can be some jobs that can’t be finished. To successfully manage closure, it’s vital to recognise to whom outstanding issues are to be given. After project closure activities have been finished, a post-completion assessment is started to measure the success of the project and record essential aspects determined for future projects.