Closing Project or phase

• Develop Closing Procedures to help you get a closure easily.
• Complete Contract closures – this area may need to be done multiple times for each contract. No project can be closed without the contracts being closed first. Also read Contract Closure / Administrative Closure.
• Confirm Work is done to requirements – Verify product scope requirements – without which you can’t get the project signed-off by the customers.
• Gain Formal Acceptance from the key stakeholders.
• Final Performance reporting to be submitted.  Do not miss this step. Most people never do the documentation, and just move on to other projects. This careless attitude can get you penalized in the PMP exam.
• Index and Archive records so that any thing can be found easily, and quickly.
• Document Lessons Learned on this project, so you and other project managers can benefit from them, and do not have to start from scratch.
• Hand off completed product to the customer or stakeholder.
• Release resources back to Functional Managers. On the exam, always assume that you are working in a Matrix organization, unless the PMP exam question states other type of organization structure explicitly.

Which comes first? What are the differences in these 2 processes?The confusion stems from them working in different organization – some come from a buyer organization, whereas others have experience from the sellers organization – specially where they work on projects awarded as contracts to their organizations.

Atleast 16 questions come from the Closing Process Group, and they are not so difficult to answer. Getting the basics right on these 2 processes will help you get 16 questions correct on the PMP exam.

Administrative Closure:This is the final completion and closure of the project. Part of the Integration Management knowledge area, the Close Project or Phase process is done when all the work has been verified, delivered, and accepted by the customer. All open issues have been raised, and finalized (come to a conclusion and closure).

The contracting parties – buyer and the seller both agree that the seller has completed the work stipulated in the contract, and the buyer has accepted it.

Contract Closure:A contract is closed upon reaching the end of the contract, or when a contract is terminated before he work is completed (usually by the buyer – if the work is no longer required, or if the work performed is not acceptable due to quality or other reasons). The seller may still need to be compensated for the work completed, as goverend by the clauses in the contract.

In multi-phase projects, Close Procurements closes the appropriate contract(s) for that phase of the project. Thus, the Close Procurements process may be repeated many times in a project.

Unresolved claims may be subject to litigation after Close Procurements is completed. A complete set of indexed contract documentation, including the closed contract, is prepared for inclusion in the final project files – Output of Close Procurements.

Key Difference:Procurement Closure or Contract Closure is done before the project can be closed completely.
Procurement Closure may be done multiple times ( once for each contract) during the lifecycle of a project.
Administrative Closure is only done once per phase, or for the entire project. Project closure is not complete without procurement closure.
Product acceptance is carried out using the Close Project or Phase process.
The contracts are closed using the Close Procurement process.