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Atricle Dump - The Importance of Project Closeout and Review in Project Management.
When it was first used and aired over the radio, the word transcription drew large attention and become the gist of the public’s conversation. Newspapers also have many data about and everybody who can read it become interested in getting into it.Being a transcriptionist, working on transcriptions offers a different kind of job opportunity. It is a task that you can get fond of, aside from that you will also be earning more money as compared to other jobs.However, does working as a transcriptionist present to you the greener pasture you are looking for?Quality transcription generally means providing the client with the clearest and most comprehensive drafts that the clients look into. In order to achieve this goal, the company makes sure that they get highly experienced transcriptionists and the best audios that can be acquired.The work somehow leads to pressure, aside from being a deadline-driven business; it also needs a full precision. All the information that you will be hearing over the audio, you must be able to transcribe it accurately. The clients always seek for an output that is both credible and reliable.The companies also have to make it sure, that they will deliver the complete transcripts in the quickest time as possible. Aside from accuracy, deadline is another important consideration. Once the client has given a particular cut-off limit, by whatever means, it has to be delivered.The value of a transcription will vary on how the clients assess the work that these transcriptionists accomplished. The increase or the decrease on the number of their clients will also depend upon the quality of output that the transcriptionist produced.Most of the noted formats that are accepted by the transcriptionist are the following:1. Court tapes- This will be comprise of the coverage of court hearings be it in higher or lower courts. It will also include testimonies from both of the parties involve in a particular case.2. Interviews- This will also include the dialogue usually between the interviewer
Continuous improvement is a notion that we often hear the last decade and review workshops should be involved in it. The idea behind this theory is that companies have to find new ways to sustain their competitive advantage in order to be amongst the market leaders. To do so, they must have a well-structured approach to organizational learning which in project-based corporations is materialized in the project review. Garratt (1987 in Kempster, 2005) highlighted the significance of organizational learning saying that "it is not a luxury, it is how organizations discover their future". Linking organizational learning with Kerzner’s (2001, p111) five factors for continuous improvement we can a define a structured approach for understanding projects.
This approach can be implemented in the closeout phase, with systematic reviews for each of the above factors. Doing so, project closure could receive the attention it deserves and be a truly powerful method for continuous improvement within an organization. Finally, project closeout phase should be linked with PMI’s Organizational Project Management Maturity (OPM3) model where the lessons learned from one project are extremely valuable to other projects of the same program in order to achieve the highest project management maturity height.
References
1. A Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2004, 3rd Edition, Project Management Institute, USA, p102
2. Arora M, 1995, Project management: One step beyond, Civil Engineering, 65, 10, [Electronic], pp 66-68
3. Barkley & Saylor, 2001, Customer-Driven Project Management, McGraw-Hill Professional, USA, p214
4. Bucero A, 2005, Project Know-How, PM Network, May 2005 issue, [Electronic], pp 20-22
5. Crawford K, 2002, The Strategic Project Office, Marcel Dekker, USA, p163
6. Department of Veteran Affairs, 2004, Project Management Guide, Office of Information and Technology – USA Government, p13
7. Dvir D, 2005, Transferring projects to their final users: The effect of planning and preparations for commissioning on project success, International Journal of Project Management vol. 23, [Electronic], pp 257-265
8. Futrel R, Shafer D & Shafer L, 2002, Quality Software Project Management, Prentice Hall PTR, USA, p1078
9. Gannon, 1994, Project Management: an approach to accomplishing things, Records Management Quarterly, Vol. 28, Issue 3, [Electronic], pp 3-12
10. Heerkens G, 2002, Project Management, McGraw-Hill, USA, p229
11. Kempster S, 2005, The Need for Change, MSc in Project Management: Change Management module, Lancaster University, [Electronic], slide 16
12. Kerzner H, 2004, Advanced Project
We like to think that we know our audience pretty well. Ranging from presidents and CEOs to HR professionals to supervisors and front-line employees to consultants and academics, our readers and website users sought us out or were referred to us because they identify with progressive and innovative people practices.So it was with some surprise that we looked at the results of one of our Web Polls for October 2006, on new manager training. Fifty-two percent of the respondents said that their employer does not offer training for new managers. In other words, more than half of the organizations represented by respondents do not have a mechanism to take advantage of a pivotal stage in an employee’s development which offers leverage to both workplace productivity and employee retention.A first-time assignment as a manager is perhaps one of the most challenging an employee faces. Having excelled as an individual contributor, the new role often requires managing the work of peers – a shift that can be difficult and, without preparation, can result in costly mistakes for the organization as well as the individual. Jim Jenkins, head of Creative Visions, a change management firm, reported in the September 2006 issue of American Executive magazine that the U.S. devotes more than $100 billion a year to correcting poor people management practices, a good deal of which could be allayed by helping new managers develop the skills that they need to do their jobs effectively.Organizations that are growing, or are working to develop a culture to support future growth, discover that investment in training for managerial roles pays off in other ways as well. First-line managers touch more employees than any other single role, influencing the productivity and success of individuals and teams where the work gets done. The data that Winning Workplaces has collected in workplace assessments demonstrates again and again that managers at the lowest levels have the most powerful impact on how employees perceive their jobs and the organization as a whole. Good
The well known English phrase “last but not least” could not better describe how important the project closeout phase is. Being the very last part of the project life-cycle it is often ignored even by large organizations, especially when they operate in multi-project environments. They tend to jump from one project to another and rush into finishing each project because time is pressing and resources are costly. Then projects keep failing and organizations take no corrective actions, simply because they do not have the time to think about what went wrong and what should be fixed next time. Lessons learned can be discussed at project reviews as part of the closeout phase. Closure also deals with the final details of the project and provides a normal ending for all procedures, including the delivery of the final product. This paper identifies the reasons that closeout is neglected, analyzes the best practices that could enhance its position within the business environment and suggest additional steps for a complete project closeout through continuous improvement.
Project managers often know when to finish a projects but they forget how to do it. They are so eager to complete a project that they hardly miss the completion indicators. "Ideally, the project ends when the project goal has been achieved and is ready to hand over to customer" (Wellace et. al, 2004, p156). In times of big booms and bubbles, senior management could order the immediate termination of costly projects. A characteristic example of that is Bangkok’s over investment in construction of sky-scrapers, where most of them left abandoned without finishing the last floors due to enormous costs (Tvede, 2001, p267). Projects heavily attached to time can be terminated before normal finishing point if they miss a critical deadline, such as an invitation to tender. Kerzner (2001, p594) adds some behavioural reasons for early termination such as "poor morale, human relations or labour productivity". The violent nature of early termination is also known as ‘killing a project’ because it "involves serious career and economic consequences" (Futrel, Shafer D & Shafer L, 2002, 1078). Killing a project can be a difficult decision since emotional issues create pride within an organization and a fear of being viewed as quitters blurs managerial decisions (Heerkens, 2002, p229).
Recognition
The most direct reason that Project Closeout phase is neglected is lack of resources, time and budget. Even though most of project-based organizations have a review process formally planned, most of the times "given the pressure of work, project team member found themselves being assigned to new projects as soon as a current project is completed" (Newell, 2004). Moreover, the senior management often considers the cost of project closeout unnecessary. Sowards (2005) implies this added cost as an effort "in planning, holding and documenting effective post project reviews". He draws a parallel between reviews and investments because both require a start-up expenditure but they can also pay dividends in the future.
Human nature avoids accountability for serious defects. Therefore, members of project teams and especially the project manager who has the overall responsibility, will unsurprisingly avoid such a critique of their work if they can. As Kerzner (2001, p110) observe, "documenting successes is easy. Documenting mistakes is more troublesome because people do not want their names attached to mistakes for fear of retribution". Thomset (2002, p260) compares project reviews with the ‘witch hunts’ saying that they can be "one of the most political and cynical of all organizational practices where the victims (the project manager and the team) are blamed by senior management". While he identifies top management as the main responsible party for a failure, Murray (2001) suggest that the project manager "must accept ultimate responsibility, regardless of the factors involved". A fair-minded stance on these different viewpoints would evoke that the purpose of the project review is not to find a scapegoat but to learn from the mistakes. After all, "the only true project failures are those from which nothing is learned" (Kerzner, 2004, p303).
Analysis
When the project is finished, the closeout phase must be implemented as planned. "A general rule is that project closing should take no more than 2% of the total effort required for the project" (Crawford, 2002, p163). The project management literature has many different sets of actions for the last phase of the project life cycle. Maylor (2005, p345) groups the necessary activities into a six step procedure, which can differ depending on the size and the scope of the project:
1. Completion
First of all, the project manager must ensure the project is 100% complete. Young (2003, p256) noticed that in the closeout phase "it is quite common to find a number of outstanding minor tasks from early key stages still unfinished. They are not critical and have not impeded progress, yet they must be completed". Furthermore, some projects need continuing service and support even after they are finished, such as IT projects. While it is helpful when this demand is part of the original statement of requirements, it is often part of the contract closeout. Rosenau and Githens (2005, p300) suggest that "the contractor should view continuing service and support as an opportunity and not merely as an obligation" since they can both learn from each other by exchanging ideas.
2. Documentation Mooz et. al (2003, p160) defines documentation as "any text or pictorial information that describe project deliverables". The importance of documentation is emphasized by Pinkerton (2003, p329) who notes that "it is imperative that everything learned during the project, from conception through initial operations, should be captured and become an asset". A detailed documentation will allow future changes to be made without extraordinary effort since all the aspects of the project are written down. Documentation is the key for well-organized change of the project owner, i.e. for a new investor that takes over the project after it is finished. Lecky-Thompson (2005, p26) makes a distinction between the documentation requirements of the internal and the external clients since the external party usually needs the documents for audit purposes only. Despite the uninteresting nature of documenting historical data, the person responsible for this task must engage actively with his assignment.
3. Project Systems Closure All project systems must close down at the closeout phase. This includes the financial systems, i.e. all payments must be completed to external suppliers or providers and all work orders must terminate (Department of Veterans Affairs, 2004, p13). "In closing project files, the project manager should bring records up to date and make sure all original documents are in the project files and at one location" (Arora, 1995). Maylor (2005, 347) suggest that "a formal notice of closure should be issued to inform other staff and support systems that there are no further activities to be carried out or charges to be made". As a result, unnecessary charges can be avoided by unauthorized expenditure and clients will understand that they can not receive additional services at no cost.
4. Project Reviews The project review comes usually comes after all the project systems are closed. It is a bridge that connects two projects that come one after another. Project reviews transfer not only tangible knowledge such as numerical data of cost and time but also the tacit knowledge which is hard to document. ‘Know-how’ and more important ‘know-why’ are passed on to future projects in order to eliminate the need for project managers to ‘invent the wheel’ from scratch every time they start a new project. The reuse of existing tools and experience can be expanded to different project teams of the same organization in order to enhance project results (Bucero, 2005). Reviews have a holistic nature which investigate the impact of the project on the environment as a whole. Audits can also be helpful but they are focused on the internal of the organization. Planning the reviews should include the appropriate time and place for the workshops and most important the people that will be invited. Choosing the right people for the review will enhance the value of the meeting and help the learning process while having an objective critique not only by the team members but also from a neutral external auditor. The outcome of this review should be a final report which will be presented to the senior management and the project sponsor. Whitten (2003) also notices that "often just preparing a review presentation forces a project team to think through and solve many of the problems publicly exposing the state of their work".
5. Disband the project team
Before reallocating the staff amongst other resources, closeout phase provides an excellent opportunity to assess the effort, the commitment and the results of each team member individually. Extra-ordinary performance should be complemented in public and symbolic rewards could be granted for innovation and creativity (Gannon, 1994). This process can be vital for team satisfaction and can improve commitment for future projects (Reed, 2001). Reviewing a project can be in the form of a reflective process, as illustrated in the next figure, where project managers "record and critically reflect upon their own work with the aim of improving their management skills and performance" (Loo, 2002). It can also be applied in problematic project teams in order to identify the roots of possible conflicts and bring them into an open discussion.
Ignoring the established point of view of disbanding the project team as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary overheads, Meredith and Mandel (2003, p660) imply that it’s best to wait as much as you can for two main reasons. First it helps to minimize the frustration that might generate a team member’s reassignment with unfavourable prospects. Second it keeps the interest and the professionalism of the team members high as it is common ground that during the closing stages, some slacking is likely to appear.
6. Stakeholder satisfaction
PMI’s PMBoK (2004, p102) defines that "actions and activities are necessary to confirm that the project has met all the sponsor, customer and other stakeholders’ requirements". Such actions can be a final presentation of the project review which includes all the important information that should be published to the stakeholders. This information can include a timeline showing the progress of the project from the beginning until the end, the milestones that were met or missed, the problems encountered and a brief financial presentation. A well prepared presentation which is focused on the strong aspects of the projects can cover some flaws from the stakeholders and make a failure look like an unexpected success.
Next Steps
Even when the client accepts the delivery of the final product or service with a formal sign-off (Dvir, 2005), the closeout phase should not be seen as an effort to get rid of a project. Instead, the key issue in this phase is "finding follow-up business development potential from the project deliverable" (Barkley & Saylor, 2001, p214). Thus, the project can produce valuable customer partnerships that will expand the business opportunities of the organization. Being the last phase, the project closeout plays a crucial role in sponsor satisfaction since it is a common ground that the last impression is the one that eventually stays in people’s mind.
Continuous improvement is a notion that we often hear the last decade and review workshops should be involved in it. The idea behind this theory is that companies have to find new ways to sustain their competitive advantage in order to be amongst the market leaders. To do so, they must have a well-structured approach to organizational learning which in project-based corporations is materialized in the project review. Garratt (1987 in Kempster, 2005) highlighted the significance of organizational learning saying that "it is not a luxury, it is how organizations discover their future". Linking organizational learning with Kerzner’s (2001, p111) five factors for continuous improvement we can a define a structured approach for understanding projects.
This approach can be implemented in the closeout phase, with systematic reviews for each of the above factors. Doing so, project closure could receive the attention it deserves and be a truly powerful method for continuous improvement within an organization. Finally, project closeout phase should be linked with PMI’s Organizational Project Management Maturity (OPM3) model where the lessons learned from one project are extremely valuable to other projects of the same program in order to achieve the highest project management maturity height.
References
1. A Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2004, 3rd Edition, Project Management Institute, USA, p102
2. Arora M, 1995, Project management: One step beyond, Civil Engineering, 65, 10, [Electronic], pp 66-68
3. Barkley & Saylor, 2001, Customer-Driven Project Management, McGraw-Hill Professional, USA, p214
4. Bucero A, 2005, Project Know-How, PM Network, May 2005 issue, [Electronic], pp 20-22
5. Crawford K, 2002, The Strategic Project Office, Marcel Dekker, USA, p163
6. Department of Veteran Affairs, 2004, Project Management Guide, Office of Information and Technology – USA Government, p13
7. Dvir D, 2005, Transferring projects to their final users: The effect of planning and preparations for commissioning on project success, International Journal of Project Management vol. 23, [Electronic], pp 257-265
8. Futrel R, Shafer D & Shafer L, 2002, Quality Software Project Management, Prentice Hall PTR, USA, p1078
9. Gannon, 1994, Project Management: an approach to accomplishing things, Records Management Quarterly, Vol. 28, Issue 3, [Electronic], pp 3-12
10. Heerkens G, 2002, Project Management, McGraw-Hill, USA, p229
11. Kempster S, 2005, The Need for Change, MSc in Project Management: Change Management module, Lancaster University, [Electronic], slide 16
12. Kerzner H, 2004, Advanced Project
Searching for a legitimate business opportunity takes time and research. There is no business opportunity that you should ever get into that makes unrealistic demands. If there is a sense of urgency, a one time only offer that ends tomorrow, or an extremely reduced price offer, you should know that there is something wrong. There are other things to look for as well.Illegitimate business opportunities try to pressure searching entrepreneurs into making decisions at the spur of the moment. Once they have you on the phone or you visit their website, they won’t let you leave until you make a decision. Everyone in business has a sense of urgency. We all want to get deals on the table and stir up that emotion to seal the deal. But, when a company won’t let you research the business opportunity and put the appropriate time into looking at it, that’s a sure sign you should pass on it.If it’s a one time only offer, you should pass on it too. Legitimate business opportunities will always be there. That sense of urgency once again should be a sure sign to you that someone is nervous about letting you walk away before making a decision. If they won’t allow you to look at the opportunity to see it for what it is, then there is nothing for you to see. That means there is no opportunity.Extremely reduced price offers are also like neon signs that you should pass on the opportunity. When someone is puffing up the value of the business while offering you such a low price that something seems wrong, it normally is. It’s ok to get a reduced price. That just makes good business sometimes. But when something is worth $5,000 and you get an offer of $197, there’s something wrong.Legitimate business opportunities aren’t hard to find really. They are right in front of you most of the time. You just have to open your eyes and be ready when it comes. Rivky’s Art Workshops are legitimate business opportunities that provide you with so much more than a business to run. And you don’t have to be an artist to run an art workshop.If you have business sense,
Human nature avoids accountability for serious defects. Therefore, members of project teams and especially the project manager who has the overall responsibility, will unsurprisingly avoid such a critique of their work if they can. As Kerzner (2001, p110) observe, "documenting successes is easy. Documenting mistakes is more troublesome because people do not want their names attached to mistakes for fear of retribution". Thomset (2002, p260) compares project reviews with the ‘witch hunts’ saying that they can be "one of the most political and cynical of all organizational practices where the victims (the project manager and the team) are blamed by senior management". While he identifies top management as the main responsible party for a failure, Murray (2001) suggest that the project manager "must accept ultimate responsibility, regardless of the factors involved". A fair-minded stance on these different viewpoints would evoke that the purpose of the project review is not to find a scapegoat but to learn from the mistakes. After all, "the only true project failures are those from which nothing is learned" (Kerzner, 2004, p303).
Analysis
When the project is finished, the closeout phase must be implemented as planned. "A general rule is that project closing should take no more than 2% of the total effort required for the project" (Crawford, 2002, p163). The project management literature has many different sets of actions for the last phase of the project life cycle. Maylor (2005, p345) groups the necessary activities into a six step procedure, which can differ depending on the size and the scope of the project:
1. Completion
First of all, the project manager must ensure the project is 100% complete. Young (2003, p256) noticed that in the closeout phase "it is quite common to find a number of outstanding minor tasks from early key stages still unfinished. They are not critical and have not impeded progress, yet they must be completed". Furthermore, some projects need continuing service and support even after they are finished, such as IT projects. While it is helpful when this demand is part of the original statement of requirements, it is often part of the contract closeout. Rosenau and Githens (2005, p300) suggest that "the contractor should view continuing service and support as an opportunity and not merely as an obligation" since they can both learn from each other by exchanging ideas.
2. Documentation Mooz et. al (2003, p160) defines documentation as "any text or pictorial information that describe project deliverables". The importance of documentation is emphasized by Pinkerton (2003, p329) who notes that "it is imperative that everything learned during the project, from conception through initial operations, should be captured and become an asset". A detailed documentation will allow future changes to be made without extraordinary effort since all the aspects of the project are written down. Documentation is the key for well-organized change of the project owner, i.e. for a new investor that takes over the project after it is finished. Lecky-Thompson (2005, p26) makes a distinction between the documentation requirements of the internal and the external clients since the external party usually needs the documents for audit purposes only. Despite the uninteresting nature of documenting historical data, the person responsible for this task must engage actively with his assignment.
3. Project Systems Closure All project systems must close down at the closeout phase. This includes the financial systems, i.e. all payments must be completed to external suppliers or providers and all work orders must terminate (Department of Veterans Affairs, 2004, p13). "In closing project files, the project manager should bring records up to date and make sure all original documents are in the project files and at one location" (Arora, 1995). Maylor (2005, 347) suggest that "a formal notice of closure should be issued to inform other staff and support systems that there are no further activities to be carried out or charges to be made". As a result, unnecessary charges can be avoided by unauthorized expenditure and clients will understand that they can not receive additional services at no cost.
4. Project Reviews The project review comes usually comes after all the project systems are closed. It is a bridge that connects two projects that come one after another. Project reviews transfer not only tangible knowledge such as numerical data of cost and time but also the tacit knowledge which is hard to document. ‘Know-how’ and more important ‘know-why’ are passed on to future projects in order to eliminate the need for project managers to ‘invent the wheel’ from scratch every time they start a new project. The reuse of existing tools and experience can be expanded to different project teams of the same organization in order to enhance project results (Bucero, 2005). Reviews have a holistic nature which investigate the impact of the project on the environment as a whole. Audits can also be helpful but they are focused on the internal of the organization. Planning the reviews should include the appropriate time and place for the workshops and most important the people that will be invited. Choosing the right people for the review will enhance the value of the meeting and help the learning process while having an objective critique not only by the team members but also from a neutral external auditor. The outcome of this review should be a final report which will be presented to the senior management and the project sponsor. Whitten (2003) also notices that "often just preparing a review presentation forces a project team to think through and solve many of the problems publicly exposing the state of their work".
5. Disband the project team
Before reallocating the staff amongst other resources, closeout phase provides an excellent opportunity to assess the effort, the commitment and the results of each team member individually. Extra-ordinary performance should be complemented in public and symbolic rewards could be granted for innovation and creativity (Gannon, 1994). This process can be vital for team satisfaction and can improve commitment for future projects (Reed, 2001). Reviewing a project can be in the form of a reflective process, as illustrated in the next figure, where project managers "record and critically reflect upon their own work with the aim of improving their management skills and performance" (Loo, 2002). It can also be applied in problematic project teams in order to identify the roots of possible conflicts and bring them into an open discussion.
Ignoring the established point of view of disbanding the project team as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary overheads, Meredith and Mandel (2003, p660) imply that it’s best to wait as much as you can for two main reasons. First it helps to minimize the frustration that might generate a team member’s reassignment with unfavourable prospects. Second it keeps the interest and the professionalism of the team members high as it is common ground that during the closing stages, some slacking is likely to appear.
6. Stakeholder satisfaction
PMI’s PMBoK (2004, p102) defines that "actions and activities are necessary to confirm that the project has met all the sponsor, customer and other stakeholders’ requirements". Such actions can be a final presentation of the project review which includes all the important information that should be published to the stakeholders. This information can include a timeline showing the progress of the project from the beginning until the end, the milestones that were met or missed, the problems encountered and a brief financial presentation. A well prepared presentation which is focused on the strong aspects of the projects can cover some flaws from the stakeholders and make a failure look like an unexpected success.
Next Steps
Even when the client accepts the delivery of the final product or service with a formal sign-off (Dvir, 2005), the closeout phase should not be seen as an effort to get rid of a project. Instead, the key issue in this phase is "finding follow-up business development potential from the project deliverable" (Barkley & Saylor, 2001, p214). Thus, the project can produce valuable customer partnerships that will expand the business opportunities of the organization. Being the last phase, the project closeout plays a crucial role in sponsor satisfaction since it is a common ground that the last impression is the one that eventually stays in people’s mind.
Continuous improvement is a notion that we often hear the last decade and review workshops should be involved in it. The idea behind this theory is that companies have to find new ways to sustain their competitive advantage in order to be amongst the market leaders. To do so, they must have a well-structured approach to organizational learning which in project-based corporations is materialized in the project review. Garratt (1987 in Kempster, 2005) highlighted the significance of organizational learning saying that "it is not a luxury, it is how organizations discover their future". Linking organizational learning with Kerzner’s (2001, p111) five factors for continuous improvement we can a define a structured approach for understanding projects.
This approach can be implemented in the closeout phase, with systematic reviews for each of the above factors. Doing so, project closure could receive the attention it deserves and be a truly powerful method for continuous improvement within an organization. Finally, project closeout phase should be linked with PMI’s Organizational Project Management Maturity (OPM3) model where the lessons learned from one project are extremely valuable to other projects of the same program in order to achieve the highest project management maturity height.
References
1. A Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2004, 3rd Edition, Project Management Institute, USA, p102
2. Arora M, 1995, Project management: One step beyond, Civil Engineering, 65, 10, [Electronic], pp 66-68
3. Barkley & Saylor, 2001, Customer-Driven Project Management, McGraw-Hill Professional, USA, p214
4. Bucero A, 2005, Project Know-How, PM Network, May 2005 issue, [Electronic], pp 20-22
5. Crawford K, 2002, The Strategic Project Office, Marcel Dekker, USA, p163
6. Department of Veteran Affairs, 2004, Project Management Guide, Office of Information and Technology – USA Government, p13
7. Dvir D, 2005, Transferring projects to their final users: The effect of planning and preparations for commissioning on project success, International Journal of Project Management vol. 23, [Electronic], pp 257-265
8. Futrel R, Shafer D & Shafer L, 2002, Quality Software Project Management, Prentice Hall PTR, USA, p1078
9. Gannon, 1994, Project Management: an approach to accomplishing things, Records Management Quarterly, Vol. 28, Issue 3, [Electronic], pp 3-12
10. Heerkens G, 2002, Project Management, McGraw-Hill, USA, p229
11. Kempster S, 2005, The Need for Change, MSc in Project Management: Change Management module, Lancaster University, [Electronic], slide 16
12. Kerzner H, 2004, Advanced Project
But a lot of the awkwardness in performance appraisal meetings can be eliminated by following some simple suggestions. Here are a couple of tips that will help put both players at ease. (In Part 2 of this article, I’ll provide some additional suggestions.)Gather Your Appraisal Information and Materials in AdvanceThe most important item you need to have is a copy of the individual’s performance appraisal. That’s obvious. But that’s not all. At the beginning of the year you and the individual probably had a performance planning meeting. Ideally, the individual would have taken notes on a blank copy of the appraisal form and made a copy for you. That document should have all of the key items that you discussed during the meeting. Be sure you have a copy of that planning document in case a question about the original goals comes up.You’ll also need information about the individual’s performance, particularly if there are some areas where the performance varied significantly from your expectations. Whether the variation was in a positive or negative direction, you’ll need to be able to demonstrate why you assigned the rating that you did. If the assessment is that the individual’s performance was less than you desired, then it’s critically important that you have all of the evidence you used in order to come to that “Unsatisfactory” or “Need Improvement” performance appraisal rating. There’s a magic phrase to use here. That phrase is, “For example . . .” Make sure you’ve got plenty of examples that support a less-than-satisfactory evaluation.You may want to have a copy of the individual’s development plan. You may want to have copies of weekly reports that the individual submitted that described progress against the goals that were set. You can’t make a mistake by having too much support material. It will prevent the embarrassment of being unable to find anything of substance to justify the rating you gave.Make a ListWhat are the key points that you want to cover during the discussion? In addition to having a copy of
3. Project Systems Closure All project systems must close down at the closeout phase. This includes the financial systems, i.e. all payments must be completed to external suppliers or providers and all work orders must terminate (Department of Veterans Affairs, 2004, p13). "In closing project files, the project manager should bring records up to date and make sure all original documents are in the project files and at one location" (Arora, 1995). Maylor (2005, 347) suggest that "a formal notice of closure should be issued to inform other staff and support systems that there are no further activities to be carried out or charges to be made". As a result, unnecessary charges can be avoided by unauthorized expenditure and clients will understand that they can not receive additional services at no cost.
4. Project Reviews The project review comes usually comes after all the project systems are closed. It is a bridge that connects two projects that come one after another. Project reviews transfer not only tangible knowledge such as numerical data of cost and time but also the tacit knowledge which is hard to document. ‘Know-how’ and more important ‘know-why’ are passed on to future projects in order to eliminate the need for project managers to ‘invent the wheel’ from scratch every time they start a new project. The reuse of existing tools and experience can be expanded to different project teams of the same organization in order to enhance project results (Bucero, 2005). Reviews have a holistic nature which investigate the impact of the project on the environment as a whole. Audits can also be helpful but they are focused on the internal of the organization. Planning the reviews should include the appropriate time and place for the workshops and most important the people that will be invited. Choosing the right people for the review will enhance the value of the meeting and help the learning process while having an objective critique not only by the team members but also from a neutral external auditor. The outcome of this review should be a final report which will be presented to the senior management and the project sponsor. Whitten (2003) also notices that "often just preparing a review presentation forces a project team to think through and solve many of the problems publicly exposing the state of their work".
5. Disband the project team
Before reallocating the staff amongst other resources, closeout phase provides an excellent opportunity to assess the effort, the commitment and the results of each team member individually. Extra-ordinary performance should be complemented in public and symbolic rewards could be granted for innovation and creativity (Gannon, 1994). This process can be vital for team satisfaction and can improve commitment for future projects (Reed, 2001). Reviewing a project can be in the form of a reflective process, as illustrated in the next figure, where project managers "record and critically reflect upon their own work with the aim of improving their management skills and performance" (Loo, 2002). It can also be applied in problematic project teams in order to identify the roots of possible conflicts and bring them into an open discussion.
Ignoring the established point of view of disbanding the project team as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary overheads, Meredith and Mandel (2003, p660) imply that it’s best to wait as much as you can for two main reasons. First it helps to minimize the frustration that might generate a team member’s reassignment with unfavourable prospects. Second it keeps the interest and the professionalism of the team members high as it is common ground that during the closing stages, some slacking is likely to appear.
6. Stakeholder satisfaction
PMI’s PMBoK (2004, p102) defines that "actions and activities are necessary to confirm that the project has met all the sponsor, customer and other stakeholders’ requirements". Such actions can be a final presentation of the project review which includes all the important information that should be published to the stakeholders. This information can include a timeline showing the progress of the project from the beginning until the end, the milestones that were met or missed, the problems encountered and a brief financial presentation. A well prepared presentation which is focused on the strong aspects of the projects can cover some flaws from the stakeholders and make a failure look like an unexpected success.
Next Steps
Even when the client accepts the delivery of the final product or service with a formal sign-off (Dvir, 2005), the closeout phase should not be seen as an effort to get rid of a project. Instead, the key issue in this phase is "finding follow-up business development potential from the project deliverable" (Barkley & Saylor, 2001, p214). Thus, the project can produce valuable customer partnerships that will expand the business opportunities of the organization. Being the last phase, the project closeout plays a crucial role in sponsor satisfaction since it is a common ground that the last impression is the one that eventually stays in people’s mind.
Continuous improvement is a notion that we often hear the last decade and review workshops should be involved in it. The idea behind this theory is that companies have to find new ways to sustain their competitive advantage in order to be amongst the market leaders. To do so, they must have a well-structured approach to organizational learning which in project-based corporations is materialized in the project review. Garratt (1987 in Kempster, 2005) highlighted the significance of organizational learning saying that "it is not a luxury, it is how organizations discover their future". Linking organizational learning with Kerzner’s (2001, p111) five factors for continuous improvement we can a define a structured approach for understanding projects.
This approach can be implemented in the closeout phase, with systematic reviews for each of the above factors. Doing so, project closure could receive the attention it deserves and be a truly powerful method for continuous improvement within an organization. Finally, project closeout phase should be linked with PMI’s Organizational Project Management Maturity (OPM3) model where the lessons learned from one project are extremely valuable to other projects of the same program in order to achieve the highest project management maturity height.
References
1. A Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2004, 3rd Edition, Project Management Institute, USA, p102
2. Arora M, 1995, Project management: One step beyond, Civil Engineering, 65, 10, [Electronic], pp 66-68
3. Barkley & Saylor, 2001, Customer-Driven Project Management, McGraw-Hill Professional, USA, p214
4. Bucero A, 2005, Project Know-How, PM Network, May 2005 issue, [Electronic], pp 20-22
5. Crawford K, 2002, The Strategic Project Office, Marcel Dekker, USA, p163
6. Department of Veteran Affairs, 2004, Project Management Guide, Office of Information and Technology – USA Government, p13
7. Dvir D, 2005, Transferring projects to their final users: The effect of planning and preparations for commissioning on project success, International Journal of Project Management vol. 23, [Electronic], pp 257-265
8. Futrel R, Shafer D & Shafer L, 2002, Quality Software Project Management, Prentice Hall PTR, USA, p1078
9. Gannon, 1994, Project Management: an approach to accomplishing things, Records Management Quarterly, Vol. 28, Issue 3, [Electronic], pp 3-12
10. Heerkens G, 2002, Project Management, McGraw-Hill, USA, p229
11. Kempster S, 2005, The Need for Change, MSc in Project Management: Change Management module, Lancaster University, [Electronic], slide 16
12. Kerzner H, 2004, Advanced Project
There are many ways to show your customers that you care about them. Let me share one that tells your customers that YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT THEM. Remember, my friend, that in business it is sometimes the little things that begin to tear down the company that we have worked so hard to build. One of those little things is a real problem to me. I see it in almost every company and at almost every level. It is my belief that we do not realize the impact it has on people. In some small way it affects our "believability." What is it? It is the thing we can not do without. It's the telephone.Whether you like it or not we live in the age of voice mail. There are some who wish they could return to the good old days and talk to a real live person again. There are others who really do not care one way or another. But... now to my soapbox!If you are going to use voice mail, please return your calls and do so in a timely manner. I fear too many of us have begun using voice mail as our personal gatekeeper. "I do not want to talk to that person, so I'll just let voice mail handle it." Your customers deserve your responsive call. They want to talk to a live person and they need to know that you are there for them. If you promise to call back and do not, it affects your credibility and believability.I have a friend who has an interesting voice mail. It goes something like this...."Hi, You have reached ______'s voice mail. I will not be calling you back so I do not care if you leave a message or not."Now, this guy is a businessman. Frankly, I DO NOT CALL HIM ANYMORE! Personally, I think it is rude, and uncalled for. But that may just be me.As a business owner, I personally believe that I want to be available 24/7. That is why I carry a "smart" phone with me. Many business people I know do NOT feel this way, and that is perfectly okay with me. However, if there is a problem or need from a client/customer, I want to be able to address it. And address it NOW! That call is a concern fr
5. Disband the project team
Before reallocating the staff amongst other resources, closeout phase provides an excellent opportunity to assess the effort, the commitment and the results of each team member individually. Extra-ordinary performance should be complemented in public and symbolic rewards could be granted for innovation and creativity (Gannon, 1994). This process can be vital for team satisfaction and can improve commitment for future projects (Reed, 2001). Reviewing a project can be in the form of a reflective process, as illustrated in the next figure, where project managers "record and critically reflect upon their own work with the aim of improving their management skills and performance" (Loo, 2002). It can also be applied in problematic project teams in order to identify the roots of possible conflicts and bring them into an open discussion.
Ignoring the established point of view of disbanding the project team as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary overheads, Meredith and Mandel (2003, p660) imply that it’s best to wait as much as you can for two main reasons. First it helps to minimize the frustration that might generate a team member’s reassignment with unfavourable prospects. Second it keeps the interest and the professionalism of the team members high as it is common ground that during the closing stages, some slacking is likely to appear.
6. Stakeholder satisfaction
PMI’s PMBoK (2004, p102) defines that "actions and activities are necessary to confirm that the project has met all the sponsor, customer and other stakeholders’ requirements". Such actions can be a final presentation of the project review which includes all the important information that should be published to the stakeholders. This information can include a timeline showing the progress of the project from the beginning until the end, the milestones that were met or missed, the problems encountered and a brief financial presentation. A well prepared presentation which is focused on the strong aspects of the projects can cover some flaws from the stakeholders and make a failure look like an unexpected success.
Next Steps
Even when the client accepts the delivery of the final product or service with a formal sign-off (Dvir, 2005), the closeout phase should not be seen as an effort to get rid of a project. Instead, the key issue in this phase is "finding follow-up business development potential from the project deliverable" (Barkley & Saylor, 2001, p214). Thus, the project can produce valuable customer partnerships that will expand the business opportunities of the organization. Being the last phase, the project closeout plays a crucial role in sponsor satisfaction since it is a common ground that the last impression is the one that eventually stays in people’s mind.
Continuous improvement is a notion that we often hear the last decade and review workshops should be involved in it. The idea behind this theory is that companies have to find new ways to sustain their competitive advantage in order to be amongst the market leaders. To do so, they must have a well-structured approach to organizational learning which in project-based corporations is materialized in the project review. Garratt (1987 in Kempster, 2005) highlighted the significance of organizational learning saying that "it is not a luxury, it is how organizations discover their future". Linking organizational learning with Kerzner’s (2001, p111) five factors for continuous improvement we can a define a structured approach for understanding projects.
This approach can be implemented in the closeout phase, with systematic reviews for each of the above factors. Doing so, project closure could receive the attention it deserves and be a truly powerful method for continuous improvement within an organization. Finally, project closeout phase should be linked with PMI’s Organizational Project Management Maturity (OPM3) model where the lessons learned from one project are extremely valuable to other projects of the same program in order to achieve the highest project management maturity height.
References
1. A Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2004, 3rd Edition, Project Management Institute, USA, p102
2. Arora M, 1995, Project management: One step beyond, Civil Engineering, 65, 10, [Electronic], pp 66-68
3. Barkley & Saylor, 2001, Customer-Driven Project Management, McGraw-Hill Professional, USA, p214
4. Bucero A, 2005, Project Know-How, PM Network, May 2005 issue, [Electronic], pp 20-22
5. Crawford K, 2002, The Strategic Project Office, Marcel Dekker, USA, p163
6. Department of Veteran Affairs, 2004, Project Management Guide, Office of Information and Technology – USA Government, p13
7. Dvir D, 2005, Transferring projects to their final users: The effect of planning and preparations for commissioning on project success, International Journal of Project Management vol. 23, [Electronic], pp 257-265
8. Futrel R, Shafer D & Shafer L, 2002, Quality Software Project Management, Prentice Hall PTR, USA, p1078
9. Gannon, 1994, Project Management: an approach to accomplishing things, Records Management Quarterly, Vol. 28, Issue 3, [Electronic], pp 3-12
10. Heerkens G, 2002, Project Management, McGraw-Hill, USA, p229
11. Kempster S, 2005, The Need for Change, MSc in Project Management: Change Management module, Lancaster University, [Electronic], slide 16
12. Kerzner H, 2004, Advanced Project
A wise and dear mentor once said to me "Given enough information your intuitive sense will be validated." Intuition some suggest comes from our gut brain as described by Dr. Hawkins in his book Get Out Of Your Own Way or by others as an unknown sense that has always been with us.Whatever the source, intuition is the gut brain for business. For example, have you ever met a potential client and felt immediately that this was a good fit or conversely met a prospect and couldn't get away from him or her fast enough. Why did you have those strong feelings? And more importantly, why did you listen to them?What happened when you failed to listen to your intuitive sense? Did you experience an internal "I told you so!?" Maybe, after ignoring your gut brain because you were afraid of being judgmental, you took a chance and the end result confirmed your intuition. Nowhere is this sense, intuition, more needed than in today's business environment.With the beginning of a New Year and the desire for greater business success, now is the time to take a few moments and record all those intuitive hits and misses. As you reflect, you should begin to measure the impact of going with your gut brain or ignoring this invaluable capacity for building your business.Why should you listen to your intuitive sense beyond your own hits and misses? Given that the Small Business Administration (SBA) in 2004 identified the launch of 580,900 new employer businesses and the closing of 576,200 suggests that the small business failure rate is equal to the small business success rate. As a business coach, I am sure that the are many reasons for small business failure, but I believe that in many cases, these entrepreneurial innovators failed to ignite intuition and leveraged the power of intuition within their businesses.The intuitive capacity grows with our own experiences hence why information is necessary to validate this sense. When we are young, so is our intuitive sense. As we grow older and gain additional experiences,
Continuous improvement is a notion that we often hear the last decade and review workshops should be involved in it. The idea behind this theory is that companies have to find new ways to sustain their competitive advantage in order to be amongst the market leaders. To do so, they must have a well-structured approach to organizational learning which in project-based corporations is materialized in the project review. Garratt (1987 in Kempster, 2005) highlighted the significance of organizational learning saying that "it is not a luxury, it is how organizations discover their future". Linking organizational learning with Kerzner’s (2001, p111) five factors for continuous improvement we can a define a structured approach for understanding projects.
This approach can be implemented in the closeout phase, with systematic reviews for each of the above factors. Doing so, project closure could receive the attention it deserves and be a truly powerful method for continuous improvement within an organization. Finally, project closeout phase should be linked with PMI’s Organizational Project Management Maturity (OPM3) model where the lessons learned from one project are extremely valuable to other projects of the same program in order to achieve the highest project management maturity height.
References
1. A Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2004, 3rd Edition, Project Management Institute, USA, p102
2. Arora M, 1995, Project management: One step beyond, Civil Engineering, 65, 10, [Electronic], pp 66-68
3. Barkley & Saylor, 2001, Customer-Driven Project Management, McGraw-Hill Professional, USA, p214
4. Bucero A, 2005, Project Know-How, PM Network, May 2005 issue, [Electronic], pp 20-22
5. Crawford K, 2002, The Strategic Project Office, Marcel Dekker, USA, p163
6. Department of Veteran Affairs, 2004, Project Management Guide, Office of Information and Technology – USA Government, p13
7. Dvir D, 2005, Transferring projects to their final users: The effect of planning and preparations for commissioning on project success, International Journal of Project Management vol. 23, [Electronic], pp 257-265
8. Futrel R, Shafer D & Shafer L, 2002, Quality Software Project Management, Prentice Hall PTR, USA, p1078
9. Gannon, 1994, Project Management: an approach to accomplishing things, Records Management Quarterly, Vol. 28, Issue 3, [Electronic], pp 3-12
10. Heerkens G, 2002, Project Management, McGraw-Hill, USA, p229
11. Kempster S, 2005, The Need for Change, MSc in Project Management: Change Management module, Lancaster University, [Electronic], slide 16
12. Kerzner H, 2004, Advanced Project Management: Best Practices on Implementation, 2nd Edition, Wiley and Sons, p303
13. Kerzner H, 2001, Project Management - A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling, 7th Edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York, p594
14. Kerzner H, 2001, Strategic Planning For Project Management Using A Project Management Maturity Model, Wiley and Sons, pp 110-111
15. Lecky-Thompson G, 2005, Corporate Software Project Management, Charles River Media, USA, p26
16. Loo R, 2002, Journaling: A learning tool for project management training and team-building, Project Management Journal; Dec 2002 issue, vol. 33, no. 4, [Electronic], pp 61-66
17. Maylor H, 2005, Project Management, Third Edition with CD Microsoft Project, Prentice Hall, UK, p345
18. Mooz H, Forsberg K & Cotterman H, 2003, Communicating Project Management: The Integrated Vocabulary of Project Management and Systems Engineering, John Wiley and Sons, USA, p160
19. Murray J, 2001, Recognizing the responsibility of a failed information technology project as a shared failure, Information Systems Management, Vol. 18, Issue 2, [Electronic], pp 25-29
20. Newell S, 2004, Enhancing Cross-Project Learning, Engineering Management Journal, Vol. 16, No.1, [Electronic], pp 12-20
21. Organizational Project Management Maturity (OPM3): Knowledge Foundation, 2003, 3rd Edition, Project Management Institute, USA
22. Pinkerton J, 2003, Project Management, McGraw-Hill, p329
23. Reed B, 2001, Making things happen (better) with project management, May/Jun 2001 issue, 21, 3, [Electronic], pp 42-46
24. Rosenau & Githens, 2005, Successful Project Management, 4th Edition, Wiley and Sons, USA, p300
25. Sowards D, 2005, The value of post project reviews, Contractor, 52, 8, [Electronic], p35
26. Thomset R, 2002, Radical Project Management, Prentice Hall PTR, USA, p260
27. Whitten N, 2003, From Good to Great, PM Network, October 2003 issue, [Electronic]
28. Young, 2003, The Handbook of Project Management: A Practical Guide to Effective Policies and Procedures, 2nd Edition, Kogan Page, UK, p256
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