Common Project Closing Challenges

The proper ending of a project is the most neglected project management process. To understand why and to better prepare yourself for this important activity, let's review the common challenges that project managers and organizations have here:

• Rush to next project Due to the pace of business in today's times, there is often zero downtime between project assignments, and in many cases, the next project is getting started before you have completely ended your previous one. This mode of operation often results in an incomplete project close, especially if the project is completely in-house.
• No accountability If there is no one (or department) making sure the project close activities occur or if it is not part of your evaluation, it is very easy to let this go. After all, you've delivered the goods, the client is happy…you're done…right?
• Not seen as "value-add" activity As a project manager, if you do not see your organization putting a priority on project close activities, you are going to be much less likely to follow through here. By priority, I mean does the organization include this as part of your evaluation? does it leverage lessons learned from past projects? and does it value the support, development, and use of a knowledge management system?
• Lack of transition plan Quite simply, there was not enough attention paid at a detailed level to how the project would end and how the deliverables would be handed off to the eventual owners. In some environments, separate deployment projects are established to deal with the logistical and detail issues that come into play here.
• Sanitization of lessons learned The most valuable lessons to be learned are often "what not to do." But who wants their faults or bad decisions to be recorded for posterity's sake? It takes strong executive management support and a "politician's touch" to record useful lessons learned for an organization.