HBR Guide to Project Management (HBR Guide Series)

Chapter 20

Handing Off Authority and Control

by Ray Sheen

Now that you’ve executed your project, it’s time to gauge your success and then finalize activities, ranging from transferring control of new systems or facilities to presenting deliverables to stakeholders. Why not finalize activities first? Because you can’t know when to close up shop until you’ve determined whether you’ve met your objectives.

In other words, success means achieving the goals in your charter and scope statement—not necessarily finishing all the tasks on your Gantt chart. Whether your team is releasing a product, adopting a new system, opening a facility, or improving a process, you’ll need to validate that those goals, if still relevant, have been reached. Since stakeholders ...