When closing the project, the project manager reviews the project management plan to ensure that all project work is completed and that the project has met its objectives. Certain activities need to be accomplished to officially close out a project. Select two project closure activities from your Week 8 Reading Assignment/Week 8 Overview and explain why these two activities are important to effectively close out a project. What challenges exist with these activities? What benefits would you expect to gain from these closure activities?

Overview

Projects are planned with the best intention of executing the work as planned. However, projects may experience changes in requirements or even scope creep (the continuous or uncontrolled growth in a project's scope after the project begins). Project teams use a change control system to combat the potential for scope creep. The change control system ensures that all changes are evaluated for the potential value they bring to the project and the potential resources, time, and budget needed to realize the potential value. The project team then presents the changes to the project governance body, product owner, or executive sponsor for formal approval.

As projects unfold, internal and external conditions are continuously changing. A single change can create several impacts. For example, on a large construction project, a change in requirements can cause contractual changes with the primary contractor, subcontractors, suppliers, or others. In turn, those changes can impact on project cost, schedule, scope, and performance. Subsequently, these changes could invoke a change control protocol for obtaining approvals from entities in external systems, such as the service providers, regulators, financiers, and government authorities. While it is possible to predict some of the changes in advance, many of the changes that can impact the project during its life cycle emerge in real-time. With systems thinking, including constant attention to internal and external conditions, the project team can navigate a wide spectrum of changes and impacts to keep the project in agreement with the relevant stakeholders.

ThePerformIntegrated Change Control processoversees project change by reviewing and approving (and possibly deferring or rejecting) change requests, which are requests associated with changes to project documents or deliverables, or changes that could impact the project management plan. The approved changes are then acted upon in the Direct and Manage Project Work process in the Executing Process Group. Depending on the project and the anticipated volume and nature of change requests, aChange Control Board (CCB)may be instituted to process change requests. A change control board meeting includes the group of people who are accountable for reviewing, evaluating, approving, delaying, or rejecting changes to the project. The decisions made at this meeting are recorded and communicated to the appropriate stakeholders. This meeting may also be referred to as a change control meeting. The level and formality of change control can vary depending on the nature of the project, the complexity of the product/service, etc. For example, minor change requests may be quickly and informally addressed by the project manager or a subject matter expert. Change control can also utilize configuration management tools to track how changes affect product configuration. Various decision-making techniques can be invoked when deciding on change requestsvoting (collective voice), autocratic (single voice), etc.

ThePerform Integrated Change Controlprocess acts in concert with the other processes in the Monitor and Control process group to ensure that approved changes are assimilated into the overall project fabric. For example, an approved change may necessitate an update to the schedule baseline (which is a part of the project management plan). You can check the PMBOK Guide, Sixth Edition, Section 6.3.3.4, to verify that an updated schedule baseline can be an output of the Control Schedule process.

TheClose Project or Phaseprocess finalizes and formalizes the official completion of the project or major phase of the project (including finalizing and archiving documentation). Accepted deliverables (fromValidate Scope) are an input to this process and are used to ensure that all project work has been completed and that all project objectives have been met. The process also enables an orderly transition of the product (or service/result) to the next-in-line organizationsuch as sales/marketing, operations, maintenance, support, etc. The overall organizational lessons learnedrepositoryis then augmented (or created in case it does not already exist) with learnings from the project's lessons learnedregisterso that future projects can benefit. A final report which summarizes the project's performance is issued (as an output of this process).

When closing the project, the project manager reviews the project management plan to ensure that all project work is completed and that the project has met its objectives. Certain activities need to be accomplished to officially close out a project; these include the following:

• actions or activities necessary to satisfy completion or exit criteria for the phase or project;
• activities related to the completion of the contractual agreements applicable to the project or project phase;
• activities needed to collect records, audit the project success/failure, manage knowledge sharing/transfer, identify lessons learned, and archive project information;
• actions and activities necessary to transfer the project's products, services, or results to the next phase or to production and/or operations;
• collecting any suggestions for improving or updating the policies and procedures of the organization and sending them to the appropriate organizational unit; and
• measuring stakeholder satisfaction.

Projects that are terminated prematurely should be investigated and the reasons/circumstances for termination should be documented. Note that although the Close Project or Phase process is actively performed and completed at the end of the project, a project manager should ensure right from the project start and continually throughout the project's life cycle that all the stars line up for effective project closure. For example, if the proper data is not collected, key documentation is not developed and maintained, or the team is not attuned to lessons learned and to capturing these lessons in a timely and organized manner, then project closure will obviously fall short of its goal.