Project Management Planning and Risk

Consequences of Not Properly Closing Projects There are many consequences of not properly closing out a project that can affect the success of the project or the program for many years to come. One of the most important aspects of closing is documenting lessons learned; especially in organizations that run multiple projects. For example, in many IT projects there are lessons learned throughout the project that can affect future related projects or other projects that have similar objectives.

It can also affect the serviceability of the product of an IT project. For example, if an IT project produces software, then future revisions or software updates can be deeply impaired by the failure to document critical aspects of the lessons learned during the project's closure. A software update team may not be able to trace the original steps that were taken in the project so that the team can fix bugs or make future improvements to functionality.

One IT project was known as DRAMA (Design RAtionale MAnagement) was a commercialization of a University prototype for recording the decision-making process during the design of complex and long-lived artefacts, for example nuclear reactors and chemical plants (Successful Software, N.d.). The project had a number of failures and no licenses were ever sold. One of the problems that the project experienced was the failure to document some of the design features.

Therefore when the product was attempted to be used or even sold, many of the features of the software were unclear and people did not know how to use it. If the project team would have documented more of the subtle features that were built into the software and documented all of these during the project closure in a clear and organized way, then the resulting software program would have stood a better chance of being marketable and successful.

Project Team Members in Closing Phase "Project team members tend to be drawn toward the project during the Planning and Executing phases, but they tend to be drawn away from the project in the Closing phase." I personally believe that this statement has a lot of truth to it. There are many reasons in which a project manager and a project team might want to avoid the closing phase.

One article lists some of the top reasons for this trend (Zincubate, 2011): Project failure -- if a project fails, nobody wants to relive the project by going through all the details of the failure.

Project success -- if the project is successful, it is also easy to want to look ahead to the next project Closure isn't viewed as valuable -- many people, both inside and external to the project, often overlook the value of closure and rush to the next opportunity Time to move on -- nearly everyone wants to think about the next project when nearing the end of the current project and that generally gets the attention.

The beginning of the project can be an exciting experience that is full of creative ideas and energy as people begin to work on the project. However, towards the end of the project, the energy levels often.