Planning a PRINCE2 Planned Closure
In this short article, I shall describe how the PRINCE2 Method assists planned closure for your project. I am assuming that you realize that some projects need to be shut down early or prematurely, and I will describe that situation in a later article.
When the project manager identifies at the project end is approaching during the end of the last stage, Then the closing a project process is triggered, and the “Prepare planned closure” activity is started.
This is an unfortunate choice of activity name as shutting the project down in a controlled manner involves a lot more than just planning the closure – Important though that planning is.
Broadly, Shutting the project down involves two broad activities:
- Making sure the project products or deliverables are indeed complete
- Checking the signups and acceptances
Making sure your PRINCE2 Products have been finished
Before the project manager states that they have finished a project, they must first check whether everything is done or as a minimum, nearly done.
With a small project, you may know this anyway if you have been closely involved with the team, but even then, sometimes a quick check does no harm at all to make sure that you have not overlooked anything.
As I said above, the project manager will want to check that the project meets the Acceptance Criteria laid down within the Project Product Description
There are broadly three aspects that you will want to check to ensure that you really have finished your project.
As I have advised elsewhere, you really should have been using the PRINCE2 powerful progress measuring tool, the Product Checklist. If so, then you can easily see if the sign-offs are done for most of the project deliverables or products.
The Product Checklist will have been created when carrying out the planning at both the project and stage levels.
The Checkpoint Reports are the progress reports emanating from team managers providing progress advice on the specialist products.
At the end of the project, the project manager will want to inspect the latest checkpoint reports to see how specialist product creation is progressing.
The status information for products, which is part of the configuration management or version controlled information, should be inspected to confirm that the status of all but the final few products is set to “complete”, or “approved”.
It may be that further approval is needed on some or all products – for example some form of user acceptance or operational management sign off.
Reviewing for sign-offs and acceptances
The completion check is not complete unless you are sure that any necessary acceptances and handovers have been done properly.
Very often, you will not usually get those acceptance is now, but check that none have been left out when things may have been signed off. It may be that such products may have already been taken into operational use, and that this has been occurring throughout the project.
The reason for this is that not all projects are “big bang” with everything delivered in one hit at project end.
PRINCE2 Acceptances and Handovers
When checking through acceptances and handovers, you may need to conserver the following points:
Legal sign-offs
As an example, you may need these when the company lawyers approve key documentation
External sign-offs
These may include other organizations signing to say that they agree to the new business interfaces. Some may have legal implications as well, such as signups from building inspectors that certify the structure is safe off to the building works have been carried out.
Supplier sign-offs
You may need to manage and others from suppliers. This may be, as in my previous example, the formal handing over of a building from the development company to the customer organization. It may be that a sign-off of satisfactorily completed work, showing that payment to the supplier is now due.
Organizational Handovers
Examples of this include a development team handing a Computer System over to the computer operations department, or passing responsibility for a retail store back to the store manager off to the project team has finished the brand change, refitting and restocking work.
The need for formal acceptance is will have been included within PRINCE2 Product Descriptions and Work Packages setting down the exact requirements for deliverables.
The Project Approach document will have identified any legal requirements and mandatory handovers.
However, the project manager should perform a final check.
PRINCE2 Product Descriptions and Work Packages
A PRINCE2 Work Package is a work assignment given to a team manager to build one or more products. Each of those products is defined on a Product Description.
The Work Package is like an instruction pack describing exactly how products are to be returned on completion, including sign-off requirements.
PRINCE2 has all the right hooks “plumbed in” to ensure a controlled shutdown, but as I have described above, it is important for the project manager to take a proactive action with a degree of common sense, to ensure that all the loose ends have been covered, and that the project has met its full objectives.
This course is DEPRECATED
The old PRINCE2 6th Edition Foundation and Practitioner syllabus was upgraded in 2024. Check out the brand NEW PRINCE2 7th Edition Masterclass, covering all the current syllabus, training material and online exam benefits HERE
Your Route To PRINCE2 6th Edition Practitioner
Study PRINCE2 6 Foundation and Practitioner Exams with our famous on-line course with streaming HD Video Lessons, study guides and mock exams. In the last fifteen years we have had 6,000+ Academy students successfully transform their careers as PRINCE2 Practitioners.
