Tips for Writing a Closing Statement after Finishing a Project

Misty Faucheux reports:

"You are at the end of your project. Congratulations! But, there is still one more step to take before you are done. You need to create your project closing statement. The project closing statement basically is a summary of everything that you have done and the lessons that you have learned. The goal of the project closing statement is to ensure that you point out the things that you did right and things that still need to be improved upon. This will also help you with future projects. These statements should be kept in a file and they should be organized by date. These can either be printed out and kept within a central folder or, you can fill out the forms online and keep them on your desktop, hard drive[,] or network. Each statement should have a checklist with similar headings. Generally, this includes the following: Project Name, ID Number, Project Leader, Executive Leader, Project Manager, Start/End Date, and Date Submitted (when the form was filled out and submitted to the project leader). There are basically four parts to the project closing statement: the Checklist, Completion Statement, Success of the Project, and Lessons Learned...The goal of the project closing checklist is to ensure that project is actually ready to go to bed. It makes sure that all leaders have signed off on the project and that all the project metrics have been met. Other features of the project closing checklist include information on final updates and that they have been completed, and that all the project schedules have met their goals. You should also get the team’s input on the project and congratulate your team on a job well done. You also should make sure that the last item on the checklist is that you have submitted the project closing statement. The actual checklist items will vary based on what you want to ensure was done. But, it shouldn’t be too long. One page is enough...You need to decide what actually constitutes a completed project. Generally, this section has six areas. The Project ID will be first, followed by what the deliverable was. Next, you will discuss the completion metric. The final section will be what date the project was planned to be finished, followed by the actual date and whether or not the project was completed successfully. The project/business success section will be similar to the project completion area, except that you are measuring business outcomes and metrics. This is where you will go over how successful the project was as compared to expected outcomes...The final section of the project closing statement is what you've learned. Here, you should have the project ID, and then three other sections: what worked, why it worked, and what could be improved. Be as detailed as possible in this section as you will probably refer to this in the future. Get input from your project team as well here."