From the course: Project Management Foundations

How to prepare a close-out report

From the course: Project Management Foundations

How to prepare a close-out report

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- [Instructor] A closeout report is like a final status report for a project. It sums up the project results and helps share what you learned with others. Like a news article, start with the highlights, what the project accomplished and whether it was successful. Did the project deliver what it was supposed to? Was it on time and within budget? If not, what was the main reason why? Then you can expand on the project schedule and cost. When did the project finish? If the project was significantly early or late, include the variances from your original dates and the reasons. That helps publicize ways to improve estimates for future projects. What was the final cost for the whole project? What did major portions of the project cost? Were there significant variances from the baseline? Depending on what the stakeholders want to know, you might include return on investment and other financial measures. Next, include information you want to share with others, like significant changes, issues, risks and lessons learned. Say the project didn't deliver the entire scope. In the closeout report, identify the scope that was and wasn't delivered. In the hospital scheduling project, an additional custom software module was added to scope to integrate the scheduling systems and the accounting system. For risks that occurred, describe how you handled them and the result. If risks occurred that weren't identified in the original risk management plan, point them out so they aren't missed in the future. Include significant lessons learned. For instance, the scheduling project showed that vendor procurement takes more time than was allocated in this project. Finally, include a summary of the effectiveness of your project management practices. Like lessons learned, you can describe what worked well and how you would plan and manage differently in the future. The project closeout report sums up what the project did and how it did it. Because you'll create one of these at the end of every project, why not practice by setting up your own closeout report template? You'll find a sample closeout report for the hospital scheduling project in the Exercise Files.

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