What Is Project Closure? In the lifecycle of a project, closing the process is the last stage in which all the deliverables are completed and transferred formally and finally, the entire list of documents is signed off, accepted, and saved in record.
Project Closure Report Template Excel is a comprehensive tool used to document the final stages of a project’s completion. It serves as a formal record that outlines the project’s objectives, deliverables, and overall success.
The template provides a structured format to gather essential information, making it easier for project managers to evaluate the project’s performance and draw valuable insights for future endeavors.
What Is Project Closure Report?
The project closure report template is the final deliverable submitted when the project ends and it determines the prosperity of the project generally. It is the responsibility of the project manager to keep a record of all the details of every stage of the project.
This assists the managers along with senior members to estimate the progress and find out the areas where more effort is needed. With the help of the Project closure report template, an organization can evaluate the ways to enhance efficiency in the future. Such reports also depict the hard work of the team and the way they accomplished their particular objectives.
Feedback from stakeholders can also be part of this report as well as the team members involved. These reports are crucial as they help in the proper closing of a contract, release the resource capacity to the company, deliver final information to the stakeholders, and work on the operational transition.
The Project Closure Report Template basically is a way of assessing and analyzing the success of the project and officially putting an end to it by doing a proper closure. This is a way that allows us to see whether the project has been successful or not. This tool also helps in maintaining a log for the project deliverables.
Furthermore, Project Closure Report aids in analysis and recording that which are the accomplishments of the project. It has a proper log of the success and failure of the project throughout the project lifecycle.
This will allow the stakeholders, managers, and other project officials to get a clear idea about the project’s progress and success at its completion.
Therefore, mostly the project managers make sure that the Project Closure Report is made at the end of each project to keep a catalog of the project’s success and accomplishments.
Mostly it is up to the project manager to make sure that the closure report is made properly at the end of the project.
Project Closure Report Template Excel typically begins with an executive summary, summarizing the project’s key highlights, achievements, challenges faced, and lessons learned.
It then moves on to a detailed overview of the project, including the initial scope, objectives, and the resources allocated.
The report further delves into the project’s timeline, identifying milestones, deadlines met, and any deviations from the original plan.
Check out Change Management Plan Template as a Related Template.
How to Write A Project Closure Report?
Mostly the closure report is made when the project is on its way toward ending. It is completed as the project is closed and the final product is delivered to the project owners and shareholders. In short, it is a final report of all the project progress at the time of project closure and is used to see how the project has been working throughout from start to end.
By far we have discussed the project closure report and now the next question is how to write this report.
Following are some basic steps that can be used to write a project closure report:
- The first step of writing a closure report is to make a summary of all the important tasks and steps of the whole project from the beginning to the end
- Then make a proper description of all the performance, development, and progress of the project. In this, all the levels of achievements, targets, and outcomes must be included.
- In the next step, you must describe the project scope and objective to see what was planned for the project at the start.
- After that project schedule and the details about the costs and expenditures must be logged properly. This is the most crucial part of the report so must be handled and noted down carefully.
- Then comes the analysis of the project performance. This step of the closure report includes the comparison of the set goals and requirements with the actual outcome of the project at ending. This basically allows you to see and analyze the accomplishments and performance of the project.
- Next, the project highlighted events and happening that must be documented.
- Then you must write down all the problems faced during the project execution. And make sure that
there is a brief description of the experiences and lessons learned throughout the project.
What Is A Project Closure Report Template In Project Documentation?
In project management, a project closure report is a formally scripted assessment of a project. It collects all the details about each phase of project management in a single decent report.
A project manager through self-analysis sorts out what work is done and what isn’t. This document also serves as tangible proof that the team members have fulfilled the initially promised demands.
Importance of Project Closure Report
It is like an assurance that the tasks have been completed and hence, the project. It makes sure that all the parties agreed- upon the deliverables and the objections so that no problems can arise in the end. All the information related to the project is enclosed in the Project closure report template and avoids confusion.
Project Closure PowerPoint Slides
1. Project Dashboard
2. Project Status Report
3. Project Timeline
4. Project Brief
5. Project Closure Report
Project Closure Checklist Excel
A project closure checklist is maintained to make sure that all the important closure information of the project is included in the project closure report.
- First, you have the project scope document you must see that all the requirements are met listed in that document.
- Make sure that all the deliverables are passed over to the relevant persons in a proper way. And you must also make a log of the project deliverables at the point of delivering them.
- You must also check carefully that all the important and official project documents are properly and correctly signed and approved by the relevant person.
- All the important documents and contracts must be managed and logged with extra care.
- once all the closure documents have been signed, they need to be documented and saved in a proper way.
- And once you have all the documents like contracts, reports, and invoices then you must maintain a record of all the documents related to the project to make an archive for use in the future.
In the end, you must document all the identified problems, mistakes, and feedback from the project-related relevant persons. This document will help you see the flaws and mistakes and allow you to avoid them in the future in upcoming projects.
Related Content: Project Status Report Template in Excel
What To Include In A Project Closure Report?
Apart from the failure or success of every project, it is necessary to include all the logistic and legal steps required to complete any unfinished business requirements. A project closure report must have the following features:
- The original guidelines and requirements of the project include requests from stakeholders along with the timeline, schedule, and budget.
- Evidence that all the demands and requirements have been fulfilled by utilizing data from project management software.
- Proof that all the deliverables have been received by the clients.
- Transfer and release records of leftover resources.
- Invoices from all sources including contractors, suppliers, stakeholders, and more.
- Comprehensive reviews regarding performance at each stage of the project.
- Feedback from all the staff on board like stakeholders, crew members, etc.
- For achievement, enclose a distinct folder having files and communication of a project.
- A document for project closure acceptance.
Project Closure Process
10 Steps to Closing a Project
- Mentioned below is a series of steps that aid in creating a closure report.
- Label The Document
- Describe The Overview of The Project
- Highlight The Outcomes And Results Of The Project
- Explain The Scope of The Project
- Design A Performance Analysis
- Highlight The Challenges and Risk
- Mention Lessons Learned, Comments, And Suggestions For Future
- Establish a Financial Summary
- Explain The Transfer of Operations
- Request Project Closure Acceptance
Let’s Have a look at them one by one to have a good understanding of all of the above.
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Label The Document
Generally, a project closure report starts with the name of the project, then it has the names of all the team members involved, the name of the project manager, the senior sponsors, and the present date at the top of the document.
By gathering all this information, it becomes handy to arrange the report and assists stakeholders or senior management to comprehend the peculiarities of the projects. Organizing the names along with contacts helps the management to communicate with the team very easily in case of uncertainty or additional clarification.
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Describe The Overview of The Project
A general outline of the project encloses the objectives and aims of the project, the processes required for its progression, and the way these procedures are performed.
It also contains some information about opportunities and issues that are known along with the purpose and success metrics. Moreover, it includes the basic summary statement at the last about the general ideas of the Project closure report template.
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Highlight The Outcomes And Results Of The Project
Following the section overview, you can mention the key performance indicators utilized by the team that resulted in success, the outcomes, and the achievements.
You can list the outcome targets using a table. That table would show what was the target. the estimated completion date, and the actual date of completion. This portion evaluates the entire project by relating success metrics and recounts.
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Explain The Scope of The Project
A project scope describes the particular objectives and goals along with the product and its features, tasks, services, and deadlines of the project.
It explains all the events that occurred in the lifecycle of the project from initiation to termination. You can evaluate and draw a comparison of expected expenses and timeline against the actual values and can record variances if any. This section describes the details in more depth than in the overview.
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Design A Performance Analysis
The analysis of performance is one of the most crucial tasks in the Project closure report template as it stretches across the scope and gives data related to schedule, budget, objectives, outcomes, and success.
This part can further have three more sections listed below:
- Objectives and Goals Performance: This puts light on the primary goals of the project and how many of them have been achieved. It also includes the sorts of objectives you adjusted through the lifecycle of the project.
- Success Criteria Performance: This part deals with the performance metrics, KPIs, and the way you describe the prosperity of a particular project.
- Budget and Schedule Performance: You can highlight the budget and schedule of the project and if the members of the team reside within those boundaries, if not, describe the reasons why.
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Highlight The Challenges and Risk
This part of the report gives details about the project risk management and challenges that appeared throughout the project and enclose information regarding the impacts of these challenges on the performance of the project like timeline and budget.
You can also brief risks including budget limitations or working conditions. This aids in the future planning of other projects.
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Mention Lessons Learned, Comments, And Suggestions For Future
Writing the challenges the team has to come up with during the project and what they have learned during all the events can be valuable to deal with future projects.
Teams working on upcoming projects can seek help from this data to avoid such challenges. Stakeholders or senior management can also share tips for the rest of the team like this information. You may also include recommendations for completing future projects based on experience from previous projects.
The project manager, the crew members, and the stakeholders can consider it useful to leave a comment about the final product. Such recommendations can give rise to new innovations and can improve the overall reception of the project.
Recommendations may also contain timeline suggestions and comments regarding the utilization of resources of expense adjustments for related projects.
Related Content: Critical Path Method Template in Excel
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Establish a Financial Summary
The financial summary includes the expense of each resource, the estimated budget, ongoing costs, and the real money spent.
You can design this section as two tables titled resources’ cost and ongoing cost to effectively handle the financial information of the project and make it more reliable.
At the bottom of the table, you can add notes to mention any variances in expenditure or additional reasons for asking for more amount if required.
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Explain The Transfer of Operations
The transfer of operations can be explained by making a list of ongoing tasks and the way to transfer them to operations, including an understanding of operational roles.
Enlist all the tasks and add details about them, their operational role, the name of the person performing the role, and the date for the transition. This portion provides the necessary documents regarding official records.
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Request Project Closure Acceptance
The final step in establishing a Project closure report template is requesting approval for closure, where stakeholders and senior management can permit an official conclusion of the project.
You can also design this part as a table-bearing section that includes tasks and room for signs and dates. This portion is crucial as it signals that all the procedures have been completed and all related groups have accepted the final product.
Post-Implementation Report
A post-implementation report is based on a review that is conducted after the accomplishment of the project. Its basic objective is to analyze whether the goals of the project are achieved or not, how efficient was the progression of the project, learning for the future, and the actions needed to optimize the benefits from the outcomes of the project.
The main feature of a successful post-implementation report is to understand that the time given to a project is just a trifle fraction of an ongoing timeline.
For organizations and people who will be indulged in a similar project in the future, it is better to learn as much as they can from previous experiences to avoid repeating mistakes in the future.
For the organizations being benefitted from the projects, it is understandable to make sure that all the benefits have been acknowledged and to comprehend what more benefits can be achieved.
