Effective Project Management: Traditional, Adaptive, Extreme, Fourth Edition

Chapter 11. Closing Out the Project

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet

We cannot afford to forget any experiences, even the most painful.

—Dag Hammerskjöld, Former Secretary General of the United Nations

Steps in Closing a Project

Closing the project is routine once you have the customer's approval of the deliverables. There are six steps to closing the project:

1. Getting client acceptance of deliverables

2. Ensuring that all deliverables are installed

3. Ensuring that the documentation is in place

4. Getting client sign-off on the final report

5. Conducting the post-implementation audit

6. Celebrating the success

This chapter takes a look at each of these steps in more detail.

Getting Client Acceptance

The client decides when the project is done. It is the job of the project manager to demonstrate that the deliverables (whether product or service) meet client specifications. This acceptance can be very informal and ceremonial, or it can be very formal, involving extensive acceptance testing against the client's performance specifications.

Ceremonial Acceptance

Ceremonial acceptance is an informal acceptance by the customer. It does not have an accompanying sign-off of completion or acceptance. It simply happens. Two situations fall under the heading of ceremonial acceptance:

• The first involves deadline dates at which the client must accept the project as complete, whether or not it meets specification. ...