Chapter 10: Project Closure

Project Audits and Project Audit Process

A project audit should contain the following: • Project status including scope, cost, schedule, progress metrics, safety metrics, performance, how efficiently resources are being used, and expected value of the project • Future projections • Status of crucial tasks • Risk assessment • Information relevant to other projects • Limitations of the audit

Project Acceptance

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Post-implementation Review Problems

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Why Audit a Project?

To find the reasons for problems and issues in the project and answer questions posed by the customer, sponsor, executives, or other stakeholders including: §Is the project scope under control? §What is the current state of the project? §Will the project meet the requirements? §Is the technical approach being used appropriate for the project? §Is the project plan being followed? §Does the project follow all project processes, procedures, and guidelines? §Is the project following the best practices in the industry? §What improvements should be made? §Does the project manager communicate effectively with all project stakeholders? §Does the project team take rational and correct decisions? §Is the project team working effectively and efficiently? §Does the project authority work? §Is the project progressing effectively and efficiently? §Is the technology used in this project "industry standard"? §Is this the best technology for this project? How are the decisions made?

Project Auditing

§A project audit should contain the following: •Project status including scope, cost, schedule, progress metrics, safety metrics, performance, how efficiently resources are being used, and expected value of the project •Future projections •Status of crucial tasks •Risk assessment •Information relevant to other projects •Limitations of the audit

Project Closure Decision

§Administrative Closure •The administrative closure activities relate to the management of a project and the following issues have to be addressed during the administrative closure: ØImplementing and quantifying all tests related to the product, system or service ØEstablishing a plan to review and analyze any open issues ØDeciding how project records will be collected along with the responsible persons Analyzing project success or failure §Administrative Closure ØGathering lessons learned ØPlanning for knowledge transfer ØEstablishing project value ØDeciding how to manage the communication related to closure ØArchiving project information and update knowledge base ØPerforming an post-implementation review ØShutting down the project office §Contract Closure •Formalize the acceptance of the project outcome and deliverables. •Identify, determine, and document acceptance criteria. •Identify scope and how scope was met. •Make sure that the client or end user is full

Early Project Closure

§Incomplete requirements: Unclear and inadequate requirement gathering process; may also be due to uncommitted or uninformed stakeholders §Lack of user involvement: Due to miscommunications between the users and the project managers in an organization §Lack of resources: Poor business value, may result in reduced resources and project reprioritization; decreased project value may result from poor project management §Unrealistic expectations: High user expectations coupled with the lack of user involvement will terminate a project quickly §Lack of executive support: Management must be involved from the beginning and must remain involved in the project by monitoring the progress of the project, making the path of progress clear of any obstacles, and providing the general direction towards success. §Scope changes: Project managers recognize large scope changes in a project but are not as careful and diligent on smaller changes to the project scope. The cumulative effects of all the

Final reports

§Performance reports need to be reviewed during the evaluation. The performance evaluation should include the following: •Scope of the project including progress of critical tasks, achieved milestones •Cost files including budget, over-budget tasks, earned value, and cash flow of the project •Resource files including to-do lists, resource expenses, and over-allocated resources •Schedule files including un-started tasks, tasks starting soon, task sin progress, completed tasks, slipping tasks •Performance metrics as determined at the start of the project, and •Overall value of the project.

Project Closure

§Premature projects §Endless projects §Failed projects Complete projects

Benefits of Project Auditing

§Provides a level of comfort to management providing assurance §Provides a prioritized list of problematic activities that need to be addressed §Provides project details with a known degree of uncertainty §Reduces project risks §Reduces time and cost overruns during execution §Gathers valuable knowledge and experience §Recommendations from the audit results may be used to improve project execution and reduce time and cost overruns in current and future projects

Project Implementation Review

§Stage Project Implementation Review (SPIR), and §Post Project Implementation Review (PPIR)

Surveys

§The Project Manager must stress to all survey participants the importance of their honest feedback as one of the primary mechanisms for assessing the project's performance. The survey should include the following areas: •Project Effectiveness to identify how effective the product or service met customer needs and project scope •Communications Management to understand the effectiveness of the plan developed for the project •Risk Management to identify effectiveness of risk management, of risks that actually occurred, and of the mitigation plan •Change Management to determines the effectiveness of the change management activities •Project Implementation that considers effectiveness of planned activities •Project Performance that considers effectiveness of project performance throughout the project life span •Team performance to determine the effectiveness of the project team, and •Customer acceptance to understand how customers perceived project deliverables.

Post mortem Analysis

§The analysis of the data collected is the most costly, time-consuming, and difficult part in this process. §The data have to be read accurately in order to complete the analysis successfully. §Proper tools have to be identified and employed to analyze data, and statistical analysis of the survey results has to be used to understand the collected data. Visualization graphical tools such as Microsoft Excel can be used to better understand the data. §As soon as the projects are completed, organizations move on due to pressure from within to initiate new projects. §Organizations do not commit themselves to analyzing projects once they are completed. §A comprehensive analysis in the five areas of the technical objectives, budget, resources, project termination, and implications due to the technology and the project management is recommended. §The data collected during the post-implementation of projects can be analyzed to provide useful information. Factors: Scope, Cost, Schedule,

Interviews

§What were the issues in the project and what can be done differently to avoid those issues? §What is satisfying about this project? §Which processes worked particularly well? §Did the requirements gathering or market analysis or feasibility study identify all the project deliverables? If not, what was missed and what can be done to ensure future analyses don't miss such items? §Did our needs/market analysis or feasibility study identify unnecessary deliverables? If so, how can we be sure our future analyses don't make this mistake? §How accurate were our original cost, schedule, and resource estimates ? §Was the project scope accomplished in its entirety? §What can be done to improve estimating costs, schedule and resources? §Was the expected value realized? §Were all quality performance factors met? §Was the project assigned the right people? §Were there any early warning signs of problems that occurred later in the project? §How should the project team have reacted