Project Closure and Auditing

These sections focus on the tasks needed to close a project once the deliverables are complete.

Summary

Many little things can go wrong in a project, but as long as you get the fundamentals right and keep them on target, a project will likely achieve substantial success. However, just because you have the big things right at the beginning of a project doesn't mean they'll stay that way. Throughout the life of a project, you need to stop, look, and listen, maintaining a certain level of paranoia about the health of the project and jumping in to alter course when necessary.
Even if you have implemented reliable monitoring systems designed to alert you to any serious problems, you will sometimes need to dive deeper into your project via a formal audit or informal review. The ultimate goal of any audit/review is to generate actionable intelligence in the form of an audit report that can be used to improve the project or, when necessary, justify shutting it down.
Deciding whether to correct course or shut a project down entirely is rarely easy, and is often governed more by fear than good decision-making practices. It's important to start by seeking honest answers to questions about the project to determine its viability. You also need to keep in mind that a stakeholder's perspective on a project will influence his or her evaluation of a project's viability.
Project closure is traditionally considered the final phase of a project, but when seen from the broader, living order perspective, it often merely marks the conclusion of one stage and the transition to another stage of the project's overall life cycle. If project closure is done thoughtfully and systematically, it can help ensure a smooth transition to the next stage of the project's life cycle, or to subsequent related projects.