Project Closure: Detailed Guide To Proper Project Wrap-Up

The work has come to an end. The goods have been delivered, and you are one step away from throwing a party to celebrate reaching the project finish line.

But then you remember: there’s still the project closure you need to wrap up. So you start to scramble around, trying to find and tie all the loose ends. You wonder where you saved those contracts, who has all the outstanding invoices, and whether or not you need to do a formal debrief. A stream of questions flood your brain, and chaos sets in.

For project managers who are well organized, project closure will be a relatively pleasant, and even gratifying experience. But for some, it might be filled with complexity. If you’re part of the latter, then keep reading. We tell you why project closures matter, and share a 7-step checklist to help you reach a smooth project finish line.

What is Project Closure?

Project closure is the final phase in a project life cycle. It’s where you wrap up and finalize the administrative tasks, evaluate the success of the journey, debrief the clients or stakeholders, and finally disband the project team.

While every project has to come to a close, not all end up achieving the intended purpose. The final outcome once a project closes can be a successful completion, a failed endeavor, or it can be a tentative project close.

According to a report from the Project Management Institute:

• 62% of projects met goals or business objectives
• 34% of projects fail, causing monetary loss for organizations

What is a Project Closure Report?

A project closure report is an official document that summarizes and evaluates the final outcomes of the project. The report shares the overall performance of the project, establishes how successful the team was in delivering to its purpose, and includes key learnings captured along the way.

Why Project Closure Is Important

Project closures are important because they deliver two invaluable project elements: finality and insights. Let’s take a look at why these two concepts matter in project management.

Finality: Official Project End Point

The nature of projects is that they have a start and finish point. From project initiation to project planning, implementation, and delivery, they normally have set project schedules they follow, and clearly defined deliverables they aim to achieve in that time. So, project closures make the end of the project official.

However, they also mark a transition point, where the product or initiative the project team has worked to create is handed over to the client or team that will become the final owner.

Insights: Capture Lessons Learned

The other thing project closures do is leverage insights and capture lessons learned throughout the project journey. These are important because everyone needs to understand why a project was or wasn’t a success. It also helps to guide best practices for future projects so you minimize the chances of repeat mistakes being made and delays in delivery.

When you close a project it’s vital you store and archive all project documents for future reference. That way, you leave a paper trail for your successor if there is one, the final product owner, and the organization who may need to see the rationale used for certain decisions.

6 Types of Project Closure

Everyone loves a successful project close where everything went as realistically smoothly as possible and the end goal was met. But sometimes, things don’t turn out the way you plan.

Unforeseen circumstances pop up, budgets get slashed, change of leadership prioritizes other initiatives, and projects sometimes fall flat on their face.

S,o not every project ends in the same way. There are six different project closure types, and unfortunately, not all are celebration-worthy. 

7 Steps To Project Closure

Depending on how long you’ve been in the project game, you may already have your unique system or process for closing a project. But if you’re a newbie to this space or want to see other ways it can be done, our 7-step guide project closure checklist might give you some ideas.

Step 1: Finalize Paperwork & Payments

The first step is to finalize all project paperwork and payments. These are all the administrative tasks which include:

• Stakeholder approvals – Make sure you have stakeholders approve all the deliverables of the project.
• Signatures – To make the work you’ve done legally binding, you need to make sure you have all the relevant signatures on project documents that finalize the project work.
• Close contracts – Any outstanding project contracts need to be formally closed off with internal and external business partners, contractors or providers.
• Finalize costs & payments – Calculate all your costs and make payments for all outstanding invoices associated with the project.

If you’ve used a project management or workflow tool like ActiveCollab, which comes with budgeting and invoicing capabilities, you would have been able to set and monitor budgets to phases or project tasks. This helps you stay on track and within your budget range so you’ll have the funds to make these payments without going into the red.

Step 2: Do An Internal 360-Degree Debrief (Project Post-Mortem)

Once you’ve got all the paperwork out of the way, take some time to evaluate the success of your project. Invite your internal project team (no external clients or stakeholders) to join you and provide feedback in a 360-Degree project debrief or project most-mortem.

These two terms are just two fancy words for a project recap meeting where everyone talks about and identifies what went well, and what could have been done better or differently. The aim of this feedback is to identify ways to make workflow improvements in future projects.

Some best practices for project post-mortems include:

• Timing – Have the meeting as soon as you can after the project work wraps up. Having the experience fresh in your mind will help everyone come up with more valuable insights.
• Feedback – Send out a questionnaire or short email a couple of days before the meeting so everyone comes prepared. Some team members may have been jotting down ideas and thoughts throughout the entire project journey, which they’ll bring to the meeting.

The questions you’ll want to ask could be:

• What did we do well?
• What were the things that went wrong and why?
• How well did we utilize our budget and resources?
• Were there any key pain points?
• Did we deliver the project to the plan and schedule, and why or why not?
• What are the roadblocks we encountered that could be prevented in the future?
• How well did we communicate and collaborate as a team?

Step 3: Write A Project Closure Report

When you have all the feedback from the project team, it’s time to write the project closure report. This is an official document that sums up the overall performance of the project and the final outcome.

The project closure report should include an evaluation of the following:

• Project goal & objective – Have the project goals and objectives been met with the close of the project?
• Deliverables – What project deliverables have been successfully completed and who will now take ownership and responsibility for them?
• Benefits – What are the benefits or positive outcomes of the project’s completion? This part is a key point of interest for executives, stakeholders or clients because it shows whether or not the time and money invested in the project was worthwhile.
• Learnings – What learnings have you gained from this project’s journey? This is where you can use feedback from the project post-mortem you’ve done in the previous step.
• Financial summary – This section is a breakdown of the budget you had allocated, how much was spent in reality, the difference between these two figures and any return or investment you’ve been able to identify.

Step 4: Complete Client Or Stakeholder Debrief

Next in line are your clients and stakeholders or possibly the executive leadership team. The purpose of the client or stakeholder debrief is to provide a final report on what you’ve managed to accomplish with the project and whether or not it’s met the expected outcome. What these guys want to know is whether or not the project was worth the effort and resources and whether it was managed cost-effectively. Having a debrief will make sure you maintain positive stakeholder engagement and continue to nurture these relationships.

The debrief can be sent through as a documented update or it can be a meeting wrap-up. Whichever way you choose to go, make sure you cover the following points:

• Project summary – Include a summary of how the project performed against the set goals and objectives, what you’ve achieved and any noteworthy successes or failures.
• Unfinished business – List any unfinished items that were in scope and how they will be managed now that the project has been closed.
• ROI – If you have any data available to share that displays the return on investment, it’s good to talk about in the debrief. If not, qualitative data can be just as valuable. For example if it’s a new product feature, you can share some reviews from customers. This gives the big bosses direct feedback on the project’s success.
• Handover – Mention who will take ownership of the final product now that the project’s over and how the handover will be managed.

Step 5: Create A Future Improvements Roadmap

Another thing great project managers choose to do as part of their project closure is to create a future improvement roadmap. This is a plan of actions you would suggest or recommend for future upgrades or enhancements to the product or the deliverable you’ve just accomplished. This roadmap can be handed over to your client, the project successor or to the organization in case they decide they want to make improvements in the future.

Some of the things you can consider when creating your future improvement roadmap might be:

• First users’ experience – Look at the experience and feedback of users after implementation and launch to identify any issues or pain points that are consistently showing up. Here, again, you can leverage qualitative user feedback such as testimonials.
• Out-of-scope features – If there were valuable features or suggested deliverables which were not in project scope, but which would be helpful additions, you can look at the possibility of bringing them into the limelight in future iterations.
• New findings – Sometimes, while you are working on a project, you’ll find your team comes up with innovative ideas that could boost and add greatly to the initiative or end product, which were not obvious possibilities in the starting phases of the project. You can add these as suggestions that might be worth investigating and possibly turning into new projects.

Step 6: Do The Trusty Handover

When a project closes, it doesn’t disappear. It transitions. As the project manager, one of the final parts of your role includes doing the trusty handover to the people or team who will be its new owners.

Project handovers usually involve:

• Documentation – This is the transfer of all project documentation, deliverables and any other project-related materials the new owners will need to reference and access to maintain and manage the goods they’ve just taken ownership of.
• Support and learning – Another thing you’ll need to organize and manage is the support and learning resources. The new owners will need to be trained to be able to maintain and run their product effectively. This could include setting up in-person or online training sessions and supplying a list of key contacts for support in case they run into trouble.

Step 7: Thank, Celebrate & Farewell

The project journey started with an official project kickoff meeting. Now that it's come full-circle, it’s time to close it off with a final celebration and farewell.

When you’re done and dusted with all the official work and closure steps, it’s important you don’t skip this last one. Here’s a couple of reasons why:

• Team morale & engagement – Projects can be short or long, but they usually involve a set group of people working together for long periods of time, where they build close working relationships. It’s important to maintain this positive vibe and build on it because, chances are, you may work with the same people again on a new project.
• Organizational culture & recognition – Finally, thanking your project team, recognizing their efforts, and celebrating their accomplishments builds a positive organizational culture that penetrates through, and impacts every aspect of the business.

How ActiveCollab Helps You Come To A Smooth Project Closure

Project closures are vital, final steps that symbolize the official end and handover of a project. They evaluate the successful or failed product or initiative journey, document and explain what was accomplished, and capture key learnings and reasons for the results.

By using a project management tool like ActiveCollab for the end-to-end workflow and management of your project, you can wrap up, and close projects with less fuss. Because we give you one platform that will take you from initiation, to implementation, launch, and the final close, you can simplify and streamline the entire process.

When you house all your project work on ActiveCollab, bringing everything into perspective and evaluating the entire project to its close will be a breeze. Because you’ll have a birds-eye view of the schedule, plan, files and tracking of all assigned tasks, budgets and resources, you’ll be able to create the project closure report with ease.

You can be a startup working on a new product launch, or a marketing agency running a new campaign for a client. The tool fits and meets the needs of all service-based companies who want to up their productivity and scale their business.

So if your last project was a challenge to close, maybe you need to try a new platform? Sign up to ActiveCollab’s 14-day free trial (no credit card needed) or book a demo for a guided tour from our super helpful team!