Today, my team and I completed a three-year project to upgrade over six-thousand workstations from legacy Windows O/S to Windows 10. I always finish my projects with a Project Closure Meeting in order to share with our sponsors and team the details related to what we've achieved and any best practices or lessons learned along the way. I try to make my project closure meetings light and fun (especially when the project ends well) finishing off with donuts and coffee. So, if you have a moment to spare and would like to see what it looks like to finish a public-sector, six-thousand workstation upgrade and refresh...then grab a donut and a hot cup of joe and watch the video of our Project Closure Meeting for County of Riverside Department of Public Social Services.
The project closure meeting is the second-to-last activity in the Q2PM project management life-cycle. This meeting is the PM's chance to bring the team together one last time to gain consensus that all project deliverables (promises made) have indeed been either met (promises kept) or deferred or not completed for good reason, and with the sanction and approval of all project sponsors. Two Q2PM documents must be prepared prior to this meeting:
Project Closure Report (MS Word)
Project Closure Presentation (PowerPoint)
The Closure Report opens with a major section summarizing the project goals and objectives, followed by detailed lists of Important Dates and Milestones, Project Deliverables, a list of any Outstanding Items, Major Obstacles Encountered and Lessons Learned. The event should be a light-hearted and fun meeting and opportunity to remember and discuss not only what went well with the project, but also whatever may have gone wrong, and which the team can learn from.
The Closure Report is complemented with the Project Closure Presentation which is a PowerPoint slideshow displayed on the screen in front of the room. The contents of the two documents should match and everyone in attendance should com away with a hard-copy of the Project Closure Report.
The very last step after this meeting is the email sent to the entire team releasing all human resources from the project...that is, assuming all work is complete. And if it is all complete, then it's time for donuts.
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