Close Project or Phase

The culminating point of the project is close project or phase process. It is to finalize all the activities going on in all the knowledge areas to complete the project. Since its functions span all the knowledge areas, that is why it has been put in the integration knowledge area.  The project manager measures the project performance against the project management plan as a whole and project baseline in particular. If everything is completed as per the plan, the project is announced officially closed. Remember that the project can be closed not only after it is completed but also when it is terminated due to whatsoever reason. The administrative closing of the project happens when another of the process, close procurement, is also done.We will discuss this process in the procurement management knowledge area.

The project manager, besides ensuring that all the work has been completed as per the project management plans, also performs the following activities in this process:

• Completes final performance reports of the team and the project
• Gets the final approval of the product which seals that the work is complete as per the plans and hands over the final product
• Adds project documents and records to the organization’s archives and updates the lessons learned knowledge base
• Release resources

Besides these listed most common done activities, there might be certain activities subject to the project industry which are to be done in order to close the project officially. As a project manager, one should be aware of the industry standards of executing the project from start till its conclusion.