Close Project or Phase - PMBOK® Guide – Fifth Edition

Close Project or Phase - PMBOK® Guide – Fifth Edition

The Close Project or Phase process is concerned with closure activities with regard to a project phase or the project as such.
This process is NOT concerned with deliverable acceptance since that is part of validate scope process and accepted deliverables become input to this process.
While deliverable acceptance can mostly be linked/interpreted to successful project completeion, Closure activities are followed even when the project is terminated or cancelled. The documentation in this case will be useful in analyzing the trend in future.
Ideally, phase closure is also called as stage gate, kill point , phase gate or milestone. There is normally a milestone attached to a phase closure. Milestones might be internal or external.
The main aspects of this process are to document lessons learnt , archive project work or deliverables and transition knowledge to the support or the operations team.
Understandably, this process is concerned with updating the organizational process assets albeit in the form of templates, process or any other form of archival.
Reusable components also become part of the archival process.

It is easier to come up with the OUTPUTS of this process based on the above description. So, here are the outputs first:
1. Organizational process assets Updates: Template updates, archival, process updates, lessons learnt document
2. Final Product, Service or Result transition: The 'knowledge transition' of the deliverable concerned with the project or phase to the team that is going to take over the next phase or the operations.

Tools and Techniques:
1. Expert Judgment: Like any other process, expert judgment is an important tool in deciding what process must be followed to make the process effective for future project work. Is closure process followed effectively as promised in the contract?
2. Meetings: Meetings with client to formalize the closure alongwith handing over of deliverables and process documentation for smooth transition.
3. Analytical techniques: Analyze future performance based on current performance metrics and see if future phases will be ontrack or what would be the variance.

Inputs:
1. Project Management Plan: The baseline document that will have details about the closure process tailored for this project.
2. Organizational Process Assets: What templates need to be used for transition documentation.
3. Accepted Deliverables: What deliverables are accepted by the customer so that the transition document can cover knowledge related to those deliverables.

Needless to say, a configuration management system to version and store organizational process assets is also an important tool for this process. Since tools like configuration management system, version control system are used in most of the processes and mainly play a prominent role in the planning and executing processes, the concerned tools are probably implicit and left out in case of this process.

http://pm-prep35.com/launchclosprojtxt.aspx

Visit http://pm-prep35.com/integlaunchpage.aspx
 - First-Ever Completely Free Online Contact Hours for PMP Exam