Project Closure: 8 Steps + Checklist to Close Projects

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.”

Longfellow certainly could nail his endings. As one of America's greatest poets, he understood that great conclusions give poems staying power. And while Longfellow never did get his project management certification, he can still teach us a thing or two about closing a project.

Projects need strong endings, just like poems. Even if you follow your plan perfectly, a messy finish can undo your efforts. Finishing well makes sure your project has clear results and lasting impact.

What is project closure?

Project closure is the last step in project management. Here, you officially finish the project, record the results, and hand over work to stakeholders. This helps make sure nothing is missed and future projects start off right.

A proper closure process includes:

• Finalising deliverables: Confirming all work meets acceptance criteria

• Documenting lessons learned: Capturing insights for future projects

• Releasing resources: Reassigning team members and equipment

• Archiving files: Storing documentation in an accessible location

You can tailor your project closure process to fit your team's needs, but here are some key steps to include:

• Run final tests to make sure your project deliverable meets expectations (like testing a feature post-launch to make sure it's still working, or reviewing your final deliverable with stakeholders).

• Look over your project plan to tie up any loose ends and make sure you haven’t missed anything.

• Complete administrative tasks, like updating documentation, finalising your project budget, and reassigning resources.

• Communicate notes and next steps to stakeholders.

• Hold a project post-mortem meeting to review lessons learned and give your team a chance to provide feedback and adjust their processes.

• Circulate a final report that outlines how your project performed relative to its goals.

The 5 project management phases

The term "project closure" comes from the five-phase project management model created by the Project Management Institute (PMI). PMI outlines this model in their Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, also known as the PMBOK® Guide. Their model divides the project lifecycle into these five stages:

1. Project initiation: Broadly define your project and secure buy-in.

2. Project planning: Create detailed goals and a project roadmap.

3. Project execution: Launch your project using information from the first two steps.

4. Project performance: Measure effectiveness using key performance indicators (KPIs).

5. Project closure: Wrap up loose ends, debrief with stakeholders, and finalise next steps.

Why project closure is important

It feels great to achieve your final milestones or hit your goal, but that doesn't mean your work is finished. After you've toasted to your success, there are still some important tasks to check off your list before you officially reach the end of the project. Here's how project closure can help you tick every box and wrap up your initiatives with confidence.

Make sure your work is complete

Using a set project closure process helps ensure your work is complete, and that you haven’t missed any tasks. This last step covers final testing, reviewing your project plan, and sharing results with stakeholders.

The closing phase also helps you and your stakeholders agree that the work is done and effective. This way, everyone knows what you accomplished and that the project is finished.

Provide clear next steps

When you close your project the right way, you have clear next steps. You might hand work off to another team, start a new project to build on your work, or use what you learned in future projects.

This helps you avoid problems like these:

• Your project lacks a concrete end date, and your team is responsible for maintaining it indefinitely. For example, imagine you had a project to improve site traffic by 20 percent. Without properly closing your project, you could be held responsible for small tweaks, improvements, and testing indefinitely to improve site traffic.

• Your project isn't handed off to the right team, so it just sits and gathers dust. For example, imagine you created a new project to test a feature on your website. To close your project properly, you should communicate to stakeholders that you've achieved the goal and scope of your project (i.e., testing a feature). Then, you need to hand your testing insights off to the appropriate product team to actually build the feature.

Capture lessons learned

Every project allows your team to learn and improve, and project closure ensures you capture those learnings. A post-mortem meeting is built into the closure process, giving your team a chance to reflect on what went well and what could be improved.

Discussing closure with your team often illuminates issues you may not have considered, since team members provide an on-the-ground perspective. This means you can continuously improve your project management with every project.

Aside from process improvements, project closure helps you capture and share key project learnings. In your final report, include lessons learned from actual project data, such as:

• Takeaways from A/B tests

• Results of user research studies

• Timeline insights for building new features

This helps stakeholders learn from your project and use your findings in their own work.

Using a lessons learned template of a project debrief template gives you a guided process to capture after-action feedback and link it directly to future projects.

Types of project closure

Not all projects end the same way. Knowing the different types of project closure helps you pick the right approach and set clear expectations with stakeholders.

No matter how your project ends, following a clear closure process helps you gather useful insights and complete it successfully.

How do you know when a project is done?

Before closing your project, you need to decide if it’s really finished. But what does that mean?

There are a few ways to determine if your project is finished, but the biggest indicator is whether you've achieved the project objectives you set during planning. Objectives and critical success factors define what success looks like and give you a clear target to aim for.

Common goal-setting methods include:

• Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• SMART goals

Not every project meets its goals, and that’s okay. Even if you didn’t reach your objectives, your project is finished when:

• You've completed the deliverables outlined in your project scope

• You've completed your project timeline

• You've used your entire project budget

8 steps to close a project

Closing a project doesn't have to be hard. As you work on projects, you'll learn what works and what doesn't work for your team. With that knowledge, you can develop your own project closure best practices.

If this is your first time officially closing a project, follow these eight steps. Take notes on what works and what doesn't work so you can refine the process in the future.

1. Perform final tests

This first step is most useful for teams focused on launching new products or features. Before you formally end work, run final tests to make sure your deliverable is stable and performing as expected. Performance often changes post-launch, especially when your product goes live to a large customer base.

Aside from running technical tests, you can also monitor customer feedback (especially on your social media channels) to see if users are encountering any glaring product errors. If you encounter any big issues, create a follow-up project to fix them.

2. Wrap up loose ends

Next, it's time to review your project plan and flag incomplete tasks. This helps you tie up loose ends and ensure you don't miss any critical steps. If you use project management software like Asana, this step is easy because you can see all project tasks in one place, plus their due date, owner, and completion status.

If you forgot something, don't worry. Take stock of any incomplete tasks and decide whether they're in your project scope or out of scope. If they're in scope, make a plan to address those leftover tasks.

For example, say your development team finished a website redesign but didn’t update the banner images. After checking your project scope, you see that this task is out of scope because your team focused on infrastructure. You then hand the task to the design team.

3. Complete administrative tasks

Now that you've wrapped up loose ends, it's time to address the administrative side of your project. While administrative tasks can vary by project, here are some common to-dos to consider:

• Make sure all project files and assets are in the right place and that stakeholders know where they are.

• Update project documentation, like process documentation, your project budget, and your project schedule. During this process, compare estimates to actual results to see if you were correct.

• Make sure project documents are signed, like any vendor contracts or agreements.

• Close out any contracts with suppliers, subcontractors, donors, or other external stakeholders.

• Wrap up project finances. Make sure your final payments are received or sent, and send your finance team an update with your final budget numbers.

• Make sure team members have been reassigned to different projects.

• Sell or transfer equipment or other project resources to different teams as needed.

4. Notify your team about next steps

Next up, write a note to your team to fill them in on your wrap-up plan. Let them know about next steps, such as how you'll handle or transfer ownership of any outstanding project deliverables.

In addition, tell your team about closing events they should attend, like a retrospective, project post-mortem, or a final meeting with stakeholders. If you want your team to provide feedback during a post-mortem, now is the time to let them know so they can start preparing.

5. Update stakeholders and send a final report

After talking with your team, update your stakeholders. This can be a written update or a final meeting. Either way, make sure to include the following:

• A final report, including a summary of what your project accomplished, how it performed compared to the goals you set, and any key successes or failures.

• A list of incomplete items that were in scope, plus how you'll tackle them.

• A list of incomplete items that were out of scope, with a quick explanation and details of how you'll follow up with the appropriate team.

• A list of fast-follows you plan to complete as part of your current project or pass off to a different team.

• Ask for feedback, ideally in writing through a questionnaire or survey.

6. Hold a project post-mortem meeting

Holding a project post-mortem meeting is the best way to capture and review lessons learned during each project. During a post-mortem, team members have the opportunity to provide feedback on what went well, what didn't, and what could be improved for next time.

Here are some tips to keep in mind before your next post-mortem:

• Send team members a list of questions to consider at least 2 days before the post-mortem meeting. These questions can be as simple as: "What went well, what didn't go well, and what did we learn?"

• During the meeting, share your screen if possible and take notes on everyone’s feedback. This shows your team that their input matters.

• Give each team member time to share their feedback during the meeting. This ensures everyone is heard.

• At the end of the meeting, thank your team for their input. Afterwards, send an update to let them know how you’ll address their concerns.

7. Create a roadmap for improvements

After you've analysed how your project went, it's time to look ahead. At this point, you can use a project roadmap to plan how you'll improve and iterate on your final deliverable and management processes:

1. Consider your final test results from step one and identify any priority issues you want to tackle. For example, if many customers are complaining about slow load times, you could prioritise an initiative to improve site loading speed.

2. Compile the feedback you received from stakeholders and your project team. Look for common themes and highlight any action items you want to address.

3. Create a roadmap to plan how and when you'll address these action items.

4. Ask your team for feedback on your roadmap, and get sign-off from relevant stakeholders.

Making a roadmap for future improvements helps you keep making progress on your deliverables and processes. It also lets you close your current project and handle improvements in a new one, so projects don’t drag on forever.

8. Celebrate

Last but not least, set aside time to celebrate your team's achievements. Showing appreciation is key to building a strong organisational culture and promoting teamwork in the workplace.

Celebration can take many forms, such as gifts, thank you notes, a team happy hour, or even a free afternoon. Think about what your team would enjoy most.

Project closure checklist

Use this checklist to make sure you’ve finished all the key tasks before closing your project. Feel free to adjust it for your team’s needs.

Deliverables and scope

• Verify all project deliverables are complete and meet acceptance criteria

• Confirm stakeholder sign-off on final deliverables

• Document any items that were out of scope and how they were handled

Documentation and files

• Archive all project documents in the designated location

• Update process documentation with any changes made during the project

• Store final versions of all assets and files

• Ensure stakeholders know where to find archived materials

Financial and contractual

• Finalise the project budget and compare estimated vs. actual costs

• Process all outstanding invoices and payments

• Close out vendor contracts and agreements

• Send the final budget report to the finance team

Team and resources

• Reassign team members to new projects

• Release or transfer equipment and resources

• Update resource allocation in your project management tool

Communication and learning

• Send the final project report to stakeholders

• Conduct a post-mortem meeting with the project team

• Document lessons learned for future reference

• Celebrate team achievements

Common project closure mistakes to avoid

Even experienced project managers can make mistakes during closure. Here are some common ones to watch for:

• Rushing through closure: When you’re eager to start the next project, it’s tempting to skip steps. But if you rush, you might miss documentation or leave issues unresolved.

• Skipping the post-mortem: Post-mortem meetings might seem like extra work, but they’re key for learning and improving. Without them, you miss out on lessons from both successes and mistakes.

• Poor documentation: If your documentation is incomplete or messy, future teams will have trouble using your work. Store files in a clear way and let stakeholders know where to find them.

• Failing to get formal sign-off: If you don’t get written approval from stakeholders, there could be disputes later about whether the project met its goals. Always get confirmation that deliverables are accepted.

• Neglecting team recognition: If you forget to thank your team for their hard work, morale and engagement can drop. Your celebration doesn’t have to be big, but it should be genuine.

• Leaving resources in limbo: If team members aren’t officially released from a project, they might not know what to do next. Be clear about when the project ends.

Close with confidence

High five, you've just successfully closed your project. You've checked all the boxes and tied up all the loose ends. Now you can move on to your next initiative with peace of mind.

If you want to standardise your team's closing process, consider turning your project closure process into a custom project template. Templates let you create predefined sets of steps you can duplicate and reuse whenever you wrap up a project. Ready to streamline how your team manages projects from start to finish? Get started with Asana today.

Frequently asked questions about project closure