Your Project Management Coach: Best Practices for Managing Projects in the Real World

Chapter 20

Obtaining Acceptance and Other Wrap-Up Tasks

When your project deliverables live up to their name and are delivered, congratulations are in order. You've reached the final chapter of the project management life cycle. The closing process group might be short but it's still important.

The first step to closing a project is obtaining formal acceptance from your project customer. Using acceptance tests or other techniques, you demonstrate that the deliverables are complete and the success criteria have been satisfied. Once the customer and project sponsor sign a formal acceptance document, you can perform the rest of the closing tasks and wrap up the project.

You produced reports while your project was underway, so it's no surprise that a report is in order now that the project is complete. A closeout report summarizes a project's achievements, what you did to accomplish them, and how well things went. All this information can be a valuable guide for project managers and teams working on similar projects in the future.

In addition to closing out any contracts you set up for the project, you also make sure any end-of-project transitions go smoothly, whether you're transitioning your team members back to their departments or handing off a product, process, or information to groups such as manufacturing, marketing, and customer support.

Determining Whether the Project Is a Success

Obtaining formal acceptance from the project customer is a crucial step in closing a project. ...