Every beginning has an end, or at least it should, and in this case, we have reached the end of our project. We have reached closure.
We have followed the stages marked and well-differentiated, to bring to fruition what we were working for. And if everything has gone as it should, now we just have to enjoy the success of our company, and the satisfaction of the fulfilled duty.
This stage can be considered a rather administrative job, which it is, but we must also bear in mind that things must be officially closed so that all the stakeholders who have been part of the project know that it has been completed.
How do we start this closure, and what are we going to do about it?
To answer the first question, we could say that the first thing to do to achieve an effective closure is to obtain the client’s authorization. This, although it may seem a truism, is fundamental.
He will mark the end with the acceptance that the agreed measures are already in place and working. Everything is OK.
- The first thing to do would be to make a checklist of all the stages, objectives, procedures, or steps that we have been establishing, and to check that they have been carried out correctly.
This will be useful for a possible post-implementation control to be carried out on a date to be determined by all the project stakeholders.
- A second point could be the collection of all the documentation generated, which will help us to expand our database.
We learn from everything, and from each project, we can extract different lessons, either from our successes or from our “less successful actions”, and having all of them archived, ordered, and at hand for when we need them is a way of using them to repeat successes and avoid mistakes.
- We will also be able to analyze the results achieved relative to the initial expectations. In this way, we will be able to check whether we know how to calculate our estimates correctly, both by under- and over-estimation. The right measure is very difficult to achieve, but with practice, everything can be improved.
- Closing of all agreements that may have been initiated during the implementation of the process, whether internal -thus freeing up our own resources to be used for other purposes- or external, if we have had to cover activities for which our know-how was not sufficient.
In short, you have to leave everything tied up and well tied up.
Things not only have to be well done, they have to look good, and at SCWUIMAC! we are very clear about this, because we want the last words we hear at the end to be:
Until the next project!
Photo: Clem Onojeghuo
