Project Closure and Review Deliverables

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 Wrap-up Closure Activities

Project closure usually includes the following six major activities.

1. Getting delivery acceptance from the customer.
2. Shutting down resources and releasing to new uses.
3. Reassigning project team members.
4. Closing accounts and seeing that all bills are paid.
5. Delivering the project to the customer.
6. Creating a final report.

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 Types of Project Closure

- Normal
- Premature
- Perpetual
- Failed project
- Changed priority

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 Project Audits

- Use performance measures and forecast data.

- Examine project success and review why the project was selected.
- Include a reassessment of the project’s role in the organization’s priorities.
- Include a check on the organizational culture to ensure it facilitates the type of
project being implemented.
- Can be performed while a project is in process or after a project is completed.
• In-process project audits perform early in projects to allow for corrective
changes and concentrate on project progress and performance.
• Post-project audits include more detail and depth than in-process project
audits and emphasize on improving the management of future projects.

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 Guidelines for Conducting a Project Audit

1. The philosophy must be that the project audit is not a witch hunt.
2. Comments about individuals or groups participating in the project
should be minimized.
3. Audit activities should be sensitive to human emotions and reactions.
4. The accuracy of data should be verifiable.
5. Senior management should announce support for the project audit.
6. The objective of project audits is not to prosecute but to learn and
conserve valuable organizational resources where mistakes have
been made.
7. The audit should be completed as quickly as is reasonable.

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 The Project Audit Process

Step 1: Initiation and Staffing

- Initiation of the audit process depends primarily on organization and
project size.
- The outcome must represent an independent, outside view of the project.
Step 2: Data Collection and Analysis
- Information and data are gathered to answer questions from both
organization view and project team view.
Step 3: Reporting
- The report attempts to capture needed changes and lessons learned from
a current or finished project.

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 A Common Outline for Project Audit Reports

1. Classification 3. Recommendations

- Project type - Corrective actions

- Technical improvements
- Size
4. Lessons learned
- Number of staff
- Reminders of mistakes
- Technology level
- Retrospectives
- Strategic or support 5. Appendix
2. Analysis - Backup data
- Scope objectives - Critical, pertinent information

- Quality objectives

- Cost objectives

- Schedule objectives

- Summary of risks

- Outcomes achieved
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 Project Retrospectives

Retrospectives denote specific efforts at identifying lessons learned on

projects. An independent, trained facilitator acts as a guide who
- Leads the project team through an analysis of project activities.
- Uses several questionnaires focusing on project operations and on
how the organization’s culture impacted project success or failure.
- Visits one-on-one with project team members, the project manager,
and other stakeholders to dive deeper into cause-effect impacts.
- Leads a team retrospective session.
- Works with the team to develop a system to prioritize information for
different recipients.

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 Project Audits: The Big Picture

- The purposes of all maturity models are to enable organizations to

assess their progress in implementing the best practices in their
industry and move to improvement.
- A project maturity model yields a more encompassing look from an
organization-wide point of view.
- The latest version of the project maturity model developed by the
Project Management Institute is called OPM3.
- OPM3 is divided into a continuum of growth levels: Initial, Repeatable,
Defined, Managed, and Optimized.

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 Team Evaluation

- Tends to based on achieving project objectives according to time,

cost, and specifications (scope) as well as customer/end user
satisfaction.
- Less common to assess how well the team worked together and with
others.
- Uses a survey administrated by a consultant, a staff member from the
Human Resources Department or e-mail.
- Uses the survey results to assess the development of the team, its
strengths and weaknesses, and the lessons that can be applied to
future project work.

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 Post-implementation Evaluation

- The purpose of project evaluation is to assess how well the project

team, team members, and project manager performed.
- Evaluation implies measurement against specific criteria.
• Team evaluation
• Individual, team member, and project manager performance
reviews
• Individual reviews

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 Individual, Team Member, and Project Manager Performance Review

Performance Assessment Responsibilities

- Functional organization: the individual’s area manager
- Balanced matrix: the project manager and the area manager jointly
- Project matrix and project organizations: the project manager
Performance appraisals fulfill two important functions.
- Development: the focus is on identifying individual strengths and
weaknesses and developing action plans for improving performance.
- Evaluation: the focus is on assessing how well a person has performed in
order to determine salary or merit adjustments.
Multi-rater appraisal or 360-degree feedback involves soliciting feedback
concerning team members’ performance from all the people their work
affects.
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 General Tips for Conducting Performance Reviews

- Begin by asking the individual to evaluate his contributions to the

project.
- Avoid drawing comparisons with other team members; rather, assess
the individual in terms of established standards and expectations.
- Focus the criticism on specific examples of behavior rather than on
the individual personally.
- Be consistent and fair in treatment of all members.
- Treat the review as only one point in an ongoing process.

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