Important Terms and Definitions - Closing the Project

Let us wrap up this section by covering the important terms we learnt.

• 360-degree survey - A form of feedback from all around the entity being evaluated.
• Close procurements - The process used to complete and settle each contract, which includes resolving any open item and closing each contract applicable to the project.
• Close project or phase - A process used to finalize all activities across all of the process groups to formally close the project or a phase of it. It’s also used to establish the procedures for administrative and contract closures.
• Procurement audit - A structured review of the procurement process with the purpose of identifying successes and failures from the planning through the executing stage of the project.
• Project/product transition - Handing over of the project output to the appropriate party.
• SOX compliance - Compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, also called the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002.
• Verify scope - The process of formally accepting the completed project deliverables.

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Summary - Closing the Project

We are nearing the end of the PMP exam preparation study material. Let us quickly summarize what we learnt about closing the project.

• All projects, big or small, terminated or completed, should go through the closure stage, which involves the closure of both parts of the project: in house and procurements.
• The project deliverables validated through the quality control process are verified for their scope through the Verify Scope process.
• These verified deliverables go through the project closure process for acceptance by the appropriate party, such as the customer or the project sponsor.
• The same process is used to close a project or a phase of it and is formally called the Close Project or Phase process.
• If the project has a procurement component, the products from procurement must first go through the procurement closure process for acceptance by the project manager or other authorized party, and then the accepted product must go through the project closure process for acceptance by the appropriate party, such as the customer or the project sponsor.

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Next: Important Terms & Definitions - Closing the Project

Chapter 93: The Finishing Touch

We are almost done with our responsibilities as the project manager. The last few things we may have to do are explained in this chapter.

Reviewing the Project

Part of the details of project closure is to analyze project success or failure. You can accomplish this by collecting and generating project evaluation information, such as what went well and what did not. Some of this information already exists in the work performance reports. However, the final information can be gathered in various ways, such as a post-project review meeting with the team or a survey questionnaire. The most important output and the whole purpose of the review is the lessons learned. The review should be comprehensive and should cover the following:

• Both technical and nontechnical components
• Both positive and negative aspects, the things that went well and the things that did not go well
• All stages and phases of the project

Trivia:
The purpose of the post-project review, also called the post-project assessment, is to learn lessons that can be applied to future projects to run them more effectively. It can easily become a finger pointing game in case of projects that had some troubled times. Make sure you don't let such a thing happen during the final meeting.

As part of the project review, you should also measure customer satisfaction from the customer feedback collected by using techniques such as interviews and surveys. This will help the organization establish and maintain a long term relationship with the customer. An example of a survey is a 360-degree survey, which means feedback from all kinds of stakeholders in the project. In general, a 360-degree survey contains feedback from all around the entity being evaluated.

The findings of the review should be recorded in a document that might have different names in different organizations, such as the post-project review report or the project assessment report. Your organization might even have a template or standard for such a report. Depending upon the size of the project, the review report might be part of the project closure report or a separate report. The report will be distributed among the stakeholders and will be added to the project archive. The project closure report can also include the final project performance as compared to the baselines, as well as a description of the final project product.

Releasing the Resources

For effective and efficient use of the organization’s resources, it is imperative that they be released in an efficient and proper manner. The release procedure might be included in the resource planning stage itself, the staff management plan should address the issue of releasing the human resources. Well-planned release or transfer of team members reflects managerial professionalism, which requires that employees be treated with respect and dignity. By ensuring a well-planned release and a smooth transition to other projects, you are helping the employees focus wholeheartedly on the project toward the very end, rather than worrying about the next assignment. This will obviously improve the productivity of team members and the efficiency of the project. Following are some suggestions to consider for properly releasing human resources:

• Although it is possible that different team members will be released at different times, at the project closure you should organize some closure event to honor and thank the project team members, including the contractors, for their contributions. However, you must check your company policy regarding including contractors in company-sponsored events and giving them rewards.
• Plan ahead and do not wait until the last minute. Communicate with the functional manager ahead of time about when a staff member is going to be released.
• Work closely with your organization’s human resources department, which might have some guidelines or procedures that you need to follow.
• Write recommendation letters for team members who have made outstanding contributions to the project.
• Make sure you gather feedback from members who are leaving the team. It will help you develop yourself as a better manager. Never ignore negative comments.
• Don't victimize the person leaving the team. In most organizations, during appraisals, the person who is leaving the team is usually given bad ratings at the expense of the ones in the team. The rationale may be that, I am forced to give bad ratings to a few people because of curve fitting and in the best interest of the project I am retaining the better rating for the person who is actually working in this project than someone who just left or will be leaving in the next few days. This is bad or unprofessional behavior on your part as the project manager.

Once all the closure tasks are completed and the documents are finalized, the project might need to be turned over to another group in the organization; for example, to the maintenance or support group.

Saying Goodbye: The Project Turnover

Depending upon the project, you might need to coordinate the turnover of the project deliverables to the customer or to another group in your organization, such as maintenance or support group. The turnover requirements, such as training help-desk employees, should have been included in the project management plan.

Once you do this, you are no longer in-charge of this project. A feeling of accomplishment for you and your team. This is the time to take your project team and celebrate.

Let the celebrations begin!!!

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Chapter 91: Performing Project Closure

Closing the project means finalizing all activities across the project. You also need to determine and coordinate the procedures required for verifying and documenting the project deliverables. The items that describe what the project was planned to deliver and what it has delivered would be the obvious inputs to the process of closing the project. The formal name of the project closure process is Close Project or Phase, because it can also be used to close a phase in a multi-phase project.

The process can be illustrated using the picture below:

Input to the Close Project Process

You need a list of project deliverables that will go through the acceptance procedure. The project management plan contains guidelines on how to close the project. These and other input items that may be used in this process are:
• Project management plan - This defines how to close the project and will be useful in establishing the project closure procedure. The project management plan is also used in verifying and accepting the project deliverables because it explains what deliverables are expected.
• Accepted deliverables - These are the deliverables that have been verified through the scope verification process. That means these deliverables meet the scope requirements. This includes the deliverables from procurements that have been accepted through the procurement closure process.
• Organizational process assets - These can include project closure guidelines or requirements like product validation and acceptance criteria, final project audits, and project evaluations. Also, you can learn from the historical information what kind of project documents you need to archive and in what detail you want to review the project to gather and store lessons learned. Your organization may also have transition criteria or a procedure on handing the product of the project to the appropriate party.

These input items provide information about what the project was supposed to deliver and what it has delivered. You use this input and some tools and techniques to carry on the project closure.
For example, you can use expert judgment in the various aspects of project closure, such as developing the closure procedures and ensuring that the closure procedures are performed to meet the appropriate standards. You can also use the project management information system to perform closure activities, such as archiving the project documents.

You use these tools to carry on the project closure.

Output of the Close Project Process

Project closure accomplishes three main elements: completing all the closing procedures; achieving final acceptance of the project deliverables by the customer, including handing over the deliverables to the appropriate party; and archiving project-related documents. These elements are described in detail below:

Final delivery and transition - This means that the project product or output has been delivered and transitioned (handed over) to the appropriate party. This includes getting formal acceptance for the product, in the form of a receipt that contains a formal statement to the effect that the requirements of the project have been met, including the terms of the contracts. One last time, make sure the following activities have been completed:

• Activities to define the requirements for getting approval from the stakeholders, such as customers and the sponsor, on the project deliverables and the approved changes that were supposed to be implemented
• Activities that are necessary to satisfy the project completion or exit criteria
• Activities related to the project completion, such as:

o Confirming that the project has met all requirements
o Verifying that all deliverables have been provided and accepted
o Verifying that the completion or exit criteria have been met

Updates to organizational process assets - The closure process will add the following documents to the organizational process assets:

• Acceptance documentation - This is the documentation that proves the fulfillment of the project requirements have been confirmed, completion of the project has been verified, and the product has been formally accepted by the customer. In the case of a project termination, of course, the documentation should show that the exit criteria have been met.
• Project closure documentation - In addition to the acceptance documentation, you should also archive the other project closure documents, such as the closure procedure and the handing-over of project deliverables to an operations group. If the project was terminated, then the formal documentation indicating why the project was terminated should be included in the archive.
• Project files archive - This includes the documents from the project’s lifecycle, such as the project management plan, risk registers, planned risk responses, and baselines for cost, schedule, scope, and quality.
• Lessons learned database - The documentation on lessons learned should be saved in the organization’s knowledge database so that future projects can benefit from it.

The deliverables that are processed through the project closure include the deliverables from procurements that are accepted through the procurement closure process. Therefore, in order to complete the project closure, you need to perform the procurement closure too which we will do in the next chapter.

Prev: Verifying the Scope of Deliverables

Next: Procurements Closure

Chapter 89: Big Picture of Closing the Project

Project closure refers to a set of tasks that are required to formally end the project. There are two kinds of projects that you need to close formally:

• Completed projects - A project that has met its completion criteria falls into this category.
• Terminated projects - A project that was terminated before its completion falls into this category. A project can be terminated at various stages for various reasons. Some examples are:

o The project management plan is not approved for whatever reason.
o The project has been executing, but you have run out of resources, and no more resources are available.
o The project has been cancelled because it was going nowhere.
o The project has been indefinitely postponed because there is not a large enough market for the product it would produce.

A project, in general, may have in-house activities i.e., project activities being performed within the performing organization and procurement activities. Accordingly, there are two aspects of project closure:

• Close the in-house activities of the project.
• Close the procurement part of the project.

Project closure includes the following activities:

• Activities to verify that all deliverables have been provided and accepted
• Activities to confirm that all the project requirements, including stakeholder requirements, have been met
• Activities to verify that the completion or exit criteria have been met
• Activities to ensure that the project product is transferred to the right individual or group
• Activities to review the project for lessons learned and archive the project records

You need to obtain final closure, such as acceptance signoffs, contract closure, or receipts for both the in-house part and the procurement part of the project and from both internal and external vendors and customers. You perform this task by using standard accounting practices and following the relevant organizational and legal procedures, such as SOX compliance.

Trivia:
SOX refers to The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002. It is a United States Federal law enacted on July 30, 2002, in response to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals that affected companies such as Enron and WorldCom. These scandals cost investors billions of dollars when the share prices of affected companies collapsed and therefore shook public confidence in the nation’s securities markets.

The Big Picture of this process can be illustrated using the picture below:

This includes:

1. Verify the scope of the project deliverables developed in house.
2. Accept the procured deliverables through the procurement closure process.
3. Get the deliverables from Step 1 and Step 2 and get them accepted by the customer or sponsor to actually close the project.
4. Archive the project documents.

In a nutshell, all the aspects of the project closure should be covered, such as financial closure, legal closure, and administrative closure, with all the relevant parties, such as vendors and customers external and internal to the performing organization.

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Chapter 88: Introduction to Closing the Project

We have successfully stepped into the last stage of the project. The last deliverable on the project schedule has been completed, and you think that the project has been a big success.
However, hold off on the project party for a few more days; the project has not ended yet. It has just reached another stage called the project closing stage, and, as a project manager, you need to continue monitoring and controlling the project through this stage. Also, recall that there are two kinds of project work; in house and procured. So you need to put a closure on the procured component of the project and then run the procured deliverables through the project closure process. The deliverables developed in house should be verified to check whether they meet the scope before running them through the closure process. In other words, what was planned to be done has actually been done. So that nothing falls between the cracks and for legal reasons, you need to formally close the project. This involves finalizing all the project and project management activities and giving them a proper closure. You should do this even when the project is being terminated before the planned finish line (A Total Disaster). After all the planned deliverables both developed in house and procured have been verified, the project should be closed with the acceptance of the deliverables by the appropriate party and by archiving the appropriate documents.

This is what we are going to do in the next few chapters.

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Chapter 6: The Project Lifecycle

In the previous chapter, we learnt what a process is and the fact that, they are used widely in the project management lifecycle. In this chapter, we are going to understand the project lifecycle.

So, lets get started!!!

Project Lifecycle:

From initiation/authorization to completion/closure, a project goes through a whole lifecycle that includes defining the project objectives, planning the work to achieve those objectives, performing the actual work, monitoring and controlling the progress, and closing the project after receiving the product acceptance or after cancellation of the project.
The below picture depicts the relation between the various stages in a projects lifecycle. Each of these stages is a process group and there are a variety of processes involved in each of these stages.

Let us now take a detailed look at these stages, one by one:

Initiating a Project:

This stage defines and authorizes the project. The project manager is named, and the project is officially launched through a signed document called the project charter, which contains items such as the purpose of the project, a high-level product description, a summary of the milestone schedule, and a business case for the project. Another outcome of this stage is a document called the stakeholder register, which identifies the project stakeholders and important information about them. The processes used to perform this stage fall into a group called the initiating process group.

Trivia:
The term high-level means lacking details or not including the details. This term will be used frequently and its good to know what it means. A high level activity would usually involved a detailed activity usually worked out through a process called progressive elaboration which we covered a couple of chapters back.

Planning a Project:

In this stage, you as the project manager, along with the project management team, refine the project objectives and requirements and develop the project management plan, which is a collection of several plans that constitute a course of actions required to achieve the objectives and meet the requirements of the project. The project scope is finalized with the project scope statement. The project management plan, the outcome of this stage, contains subsidiary plans, such as a project scope management plan, a schedule management plan, and a quality management plan. The processes used to perform this stage fall into a group called the planning process group.

Executing a Project:

In this stage, you as the project manager, implement the project management plan, and the project team performs the work scheduled in the planning stage. You coordinate all the activities being performed to achieve the project objectives and meet the project requirements. Of course, the main output of any project is the project deliverables. Approved changes, recommendations, and defect repairs are also implemented in this stage. But where do these changes and recommendations come from? They arise from monitoring and controlling the project. The stakeholders can also suggest changes, which must go through an approval process before implementation. The project execution is performed using the processes that fall into a group called the executing process group.

Monitoring and controlling:

You monitor and control the project through its lifecycle, including the execution stage. Monitoring and controlling includes defending the project against scope creep (unapproved changes to the project scope), monitoring the project progress and performance to identify variance from the plan, and recommending preventive and corrective actions to bring the project in line with the planned expectations in the approved project management plan. Requests for changes, such as change to the project scope, are also included in this stage; they can come from you or from any other project stakeholder. The changes must go through an approval process, and only the approved changes are implemented. The processes used in this stage fall into a group called the monitoring and controlling process group.

Closing a Project:

In this stage, you manage the formal acceptance of the project product, close any contracts involved, and bring the project to an end by disbanding the project team. Closing the project includes conducting a project review for lessons learned and possibly turning over the outcome of the project to another group, such as the maintenance or operations group.
This stage is applicable even for Terminated/Cancelled Projects. Terminated projects (that is, projects cancelled before completion) should also go through the closing stage. The processes used to perform the closing stage fall into the group called the closing process group.
Don’t forget the last, but not the least, task of the closing stage: Project Closure Party!!!

Trivia:
What we refer to as project stages here are not actually the project phases. A project phase is part of the whole project in which certain milestones or project deliverables are completed. All these stages, technically called process groups, can be applied to any phase of a project that is divided into multiple phases.

Project Lifecycle Summary:

Let us wrap up this chapter, by summarizing the project lifecycle and the activities involved in it.

Process Group	Project Stage	Goal	Outcome
Initiating	Starting the project	Authorize the project	Project charter
Planning	Organizing and preparing	Plan and schedule the work to perform the project	Project management plan
Executing	Carrying out the work	Perform the project work	Project deliverables: product, service, results
Monitoring and controlling	Spans the project lifecycle	Monitor the progress of the project to identify the variance from the plan and to correct it	Change requests and recommendations for preventive and corrective actions
Closing	Closing the project formally	Close the project	Product acceptance, contract closure, and archiving

The initiating stage authorizes a project by naming the project manager, the planning stage further defines the project objectives and plans the work to meet those objectives, the execution stage executes the work, the monitoring and controlling stage monitors the progress of the project and controls it to keep it in line with the plan, and the closing stage formally closes the project by obtaining the product acceptance. Each of these stages is performed by using a group of processes. Thereby, these stages are called process groups.

The stages of a project or process groups determine when a process is executed, whereas the processes themselves belong to certain knowledge areas of project management. In the next chapter, we will be looking at the project management knowledge areas.

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Chapter 1: Main parts in Managing a Project

Congratulations to you for choosing to pursue the PMP Certification. Well, to begin this journey we need to understand the 5 main parts in Managing a Project Successfully.

Note: We havent formally defined what a project is, but dont worry just yet. It will be covered will all the syllabus of the PMP Certification in the subsequent chapters.

This chapter is just going to outline the 5 main parts in Managing a Project Successfully.

So, lets get started!!!

Part I: Initiating the Project

This is the first part of the sequence of events that help you to initiate, plan, execute, monitor, control and close a project. All the topics covered herein will deal with the steps required to start a project properly and to ensure that all the due diligence is done in a proper way to result in a successful projects.

In order to initiate a project, you will need to know what a project is, and you will want to have a bird’s eye view of the field of project management. Also, you need to know how projects are selected and Initiated.

All of these are covered in depth in Part 1.

Part II: Planning the Project

You have already defined your project and started it at the end of Part I. You can’t wait to start executing it. But hold on for a moment!

When you are executing your project, how will you know that your project is on the right track? or even better When you are executing your project, how will you know that your project will end in a success?

You can answer the above 2 questions only if you had a proper planning phase before you jumped into executing the project.

Also, to lead the project to success, you have to monitor and control it throughout its lifetime. Planning gives you the tools and the framework to do that. You need to plan for the resources that are needed to complete the project. Any management task has certain risks associated with it. So, you need to have plans to manage those risks and also the quality of the work done.

Initiation determines what will be done, whereas planning embraces that what, refines it, and determines how it will be done.

These are the things you will learn in Part 2

Part III: Executing the Project

After the project is authorized through initiation and planning, it’s time to start the execution. You will be directing and managing the project execution throughout the lifecycle of the project. To perform the project work, you will also need to acquire, develop, and manage the project team. Furthermore, your organization might not have the resources to finish certain parts of the project work. You will need to conduct procurements for those parts of the work. In addition to producing deliverables, project execution will also include assuring quality, distributing information on project progress and issues, and managing stakeholder expectations.

You will learn how to do all these things in Part 3

Part IV: Monitoring and Controlling the Project

Any task has to be consistently monitored and corrective measures taken at times when things are going off-track if it has to be a success. And the same is true with projects as well. You need to continually monitor and control your project. In general, monitoring means watching the course, and controlling means taking action to either stay the course or change the wrong course. Applied to project management, you monitor the project by activities such as making performance measurements to ensure that it is on the track set by the project management plan, and you control the project to keep it on track and to bring it back on track if it falls off.

You will learn about how to Monitor the Progress of your project and how to Control it in Part 4.

Part V: Closing the Project

This is the last and final step in any project. To be honest, common sense tells us that anything that was started needs to end. A project is not an activity that is going to continue for eternity. It will end too.

Finishing a project deliberately means finishing it in a controlled way, not just letting it finish, even when it’s cancelled.

To close a project successfully, you verify the deliverables to the customer and get an acceptance about their correctness. All legal contracts too need to be closed in a proper way.

You will learn, how to do all these things in Part 5.

Last but not the least, you will also learn about Professional and Social Responsibilities as a Project Manager and about behaving ethically and morally during your time as a good manager.

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