Project closure checklist

Question

Can someone provide me with a standard checklist to be used when closing projects (particularly software projects, but if the checklist is generic it's also OK)? I think if I follow a standard checklist when I close my projects I will cease to overlook some necessary activities during this phase.

Answer 1

Here's a project closure checklist, to be  used in any project:

- Did the customer verify the deliverables? The customer must verify that each and every deliverable in the project plan is done according to his requirements.

- Was the customer satisfied? The project manager must ensure that the customer was satisfied with the project as a whole, and must take corrective actions (such as re-work) if the customer was not satisfied.

- Was the contract formally closed from the buyer-seller perspective? Once the customer is satisfied, then the contract should be formally closed and the customer must sign on the acceptance document.

- Were team members released? Once the contract is closed, the team members must be released and marked available so that they can be allocated on other projects.

- Were team members appraised? It is important to thank your team members (in one way or the other) for the work they did on the project, after all, the project wouldn't have finished without them.

- Was the project marked as done? The PMO and the Program Manager must both mark the project as done. All the stakeholders also must be informed that the project is now officially closed.

- Did you capture the lessons learned? Capturing lessons learned is probably the most overlooked activity in project management, yet it is so important, and easy. At this point you should ensure that all the lessons learned were captured. The lessons learned report must be sent to the PMO (that will later use it in its knowledge management activities, such as sharing this documents with other projects).

- Did you create the final report? The final report is a document that is created at the very end of the project, that will include all the things that went wrong and right, and an honest assessment about the project (was it a success, was it a failure). You can read more about the final project report here: http://www.projectmanagementquestions.com/2378/what-is-the-final-project-report

- Did you celebrate success? You have finished a project, it was successful. Make yourself and your team members happy, celebrate your and their success! Some project celebration ideas can be found here: http://www.projectmanagementquestions.com/693/give-some-ideas-celebrate-delivery-major-software-project