Project Closing
The Project Closure Phase is the fifth and last phase in the project life cycle. In this phase, you will formally close your project and then report its overall level of success to your sponsor.
Project Closure involves handing over the deliverables to your customer, passing the documentation to the business, cancelling supplier contracts, releasing staff and equipment, and informing stakeholders of the closure of the project.
After the project has been closed, a Post Implementation Review is completed to determine the project’s success and identify the lessons learned.
The first step taken when closing a project is to create a Project Closure Report. It is extremely important that you list every activity required to close the project within this Project Closure report, to ensure that project closure is completed smoothly and efficiently. Once the report has been approved by your sponsor, the closure activities stated in the report are actioned.
Between one and three months after the project has been closed and the business has begun to experience the benefits provided by the project, you need to complete a Post Implementation Review. This review allows the business to identify the level of success of the project and list any lessons learned for future projects.