The importance of project closure management

“ Why is the importance specifically mentioned? because it's important ”

Project Closing Management is the final stage of the project management process, when the project's phase goals or final goals have been achieved, or the project's goals are unlikely to be achieved, the project enters the closing process. 

 

Only through the process of closing the project can the project be formally put into use, the intended product or service can be produced, and the project stakeholders can terminate their responsibilities and obligations for the completion of the project and thus benefit from the project. 

 

However, since the end of the project is not only a tedious, but also laborious and time-consuming work, it is easy to be overlooked, so we must pay attention to the management of the project closure. Once the client has approved the final deliverable submitted by the project team, the project finishing work can begin.

the closing stage of the project includes the management of the completion of the finishing, acceptance, settlement, final accounting, return visit warranty, management assessment and evaluation.

the importance of project closure management

in actual project management, the project management finishing process and work are often not valued by everyone. sometimes because of the heavy project tasks, the project team is busy in order to complete the task on time, or a large number of problems need to be solved urgently, the project manager simply ignores the work.

the closing of a project is an ongoing process during the execution of the project, and the closure of phase management is an important management tool for the success of a project, which, like other work and tasks of the project, should be integrated into the project plan and implemented as planned. the importance of the finishing work of stage management is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

(1) stage management is an important review point of the project

How do project managers assess the current performance of the project at hand? 

in fact, this work is through these pre-arranged finishing management work, collect the latest information and data of the project, and compare these data with the project plan to determine the performance of the project, whether the progress is ahead of schedule or backward, whether the cost is savings or overruns, whether the quality meets the requirements, whether the project work is carried out according to plan, and is the customer satisfied with the project work? 

 

at the same time, the project manager also predicts the completion performance of the project through the project management, and timely finds the existing or potential problems of the project so that corrective actions can be taken in the near future. it's like you're happily traveling a long distance with your friends, and every time you go to a city, in addition to sightseeing, you'll always take some time to look at the plan, which places you've gone, what places you're going to go, whether it's time, how much money you've spent, how much money you've left, how much money you've spent, whether there's any experience and lessons worth learning from, etc. 

Otherwise, wherever you go, you either have to give up halfway because of the end of the holiday, or you "run out of food" halfway through.

(2) the end of stage management is a good time to communicate with customers

after a phase of project work is completed, it is necessary to summarize the work of the previous period with the client. in this way, you can not only understand the customer's satisfaction with the project work in time, but also have some documents that cannot be signed in time due to busy work, and also find customers to sign and confirm as much as possible. otherwise, over time, you may not find a suitable customer to sign this letter for you. only the written record signed by both parties at that time is the most useful thing.

(3) stage management is the best time to collect, organize and save project records

a project phase has just been completed, and the work records that the project members have on hand are very easy to collect. over time, some project members may go to other project teams, some may leave, and then collect, and some records may never be found. it is recommended to make a project record archiving list in advance, record what work needs to be collected, organized and saved at each stage of the project, by whom, when to provide, documentation format and requirements, etc., and inform the relevant project members that in addition to completing the project work, it is also a very important task to provide accurate work records to the project manager in a timely manner. 

 

Some require the documents and records to be handed over to the customer, and the project manager is best asked to sign the customer for receipt, and at the same time, he must keep a copy of it at hand for the record. many projects lasted for several years, the current project manager may be the third and fourth project managers, the customer's engineering supervisor has changed several times, what to rely on at this time?

it is nothing more than a record of black and white. as a competent project manager, you must do a good job for the project and keep a good record, if you can't complete the project due to the needs of the work, you must do a good job in the transfer of document records.

(4) stage management finishing provides the most basic data for the final conclusion of the project

this is self-evident, only the more real and accurate the data provided at the end of the stage management, the final performance of the project can be objectively evaluated at the final conclusion of the project, and the lessons learned can be used as a reference.