PROJECT CLOSING Beth Hayes April 16, 2013

Project Closing…already? Oct-Nov 2011 Project Charter and Scope Statement Initiating Jan-Jun 2012 Project Scope, Project Plan, Work Breakdown Planning Jul-Sep 2012 Project Schedule Executing Oct-Dec 2012 Change, Risk & Issue Management Monitoring & Controlling Apr-Jun 2013 Lessons Learned & Project Closure Closing

Definitions A Project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique, product, service or result. Project Closing is the process of finalizing all activities across the project process groups to formally close the project phase. Those processes to formally terminate all activities of a project or phase, and transfer the completed product to others or close a cancelled project.

Favorite Phase yet most difficult Huge sense of accomplishment Timeout for reflection and learning Team recognition and celebration Good for the soul Challenges: Declaring ‘done’ But there’s more to do The sticky factor

Why Bother? Insanity Avoidance Product acceptance Transfer product to service/business owner Acknowledge accomplishments Closure report makes it official Celebrate What say you?

Project Closing activities Traditional End of project Lessons Learned Individual teams/working groups Meeting ground rules Was the project successful? What did we do well? What are the opportunities for improvement? Project Closure Report Implementation tasks at next project Agile End of each project iteration Retrospective Productive/enjoyable Confusing Frustrating Need more of Keep the same Need less of New ideas Implementation tasks at next iteration

Simple visual tool Start DoingStop Doing More OfLess Of

Agile Retrospective All team members reflect on the last iteration to make continuous process improvements: 1. What went well? 2. What could be improved for the next iteration? Talk about - What worked well that we don’t want to forget? - What did we learn? - What should we be doing differently? - What still puzzles us? - What do we need to discuss in greater detail? - Plans for solutions? Taken from NetObjectvies

Templates & Example Traditional Lessons Learned (template) Traditional Project Closure Report (example) James Shore: The Art of Agile (template)

We did it!