Shutting Down a Project, Essay Example

Identify the concerns that arise when shutting down a project. Examine which are the easiest and the most difficult to address.

According to the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) a project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product service or result which has a definitive start and end date (Project Management Institute 2008).  The formal closure establishes the final significant milestone in the project life cycle which ceases the use of the budget and schedule initially allocated to the project.  This is important because without a formal closure the scope creep can become a significant factor which could drag a project on into a perpetual life cycle.  The project’s closure completes the project’s lifecycle and has many components that can contribute not only to the sustainment of the current project but also lend itself to the facilitation of future projects.  The project closure requires multiple objectives to be completed that include the acceptance of the project by the project sponsor, conducting a post-project implementation review, document and publish a lessons learned exercise and finally close out the project (PMI, 2008).  These areas are necessary to project closure as each objective provides a very specific purpose to the project.  The acceptance of the project is formal sign off on the deliverable of the project team and allows for the end of the project.  The post-implementation review and lessons learned allow the utilization of the knowledge learned throughout the project for use in future endeavors.  The final objective under the closure of the project includes the administrative closure of the project.  This includes filing the project documentation into a repository, concluding the contracts executed during the project, closing out the financials for the project and reassigning the resources dedicated to the project.

Shutting down a project involves many of the same aspects but in a less graceful of a situation.  The main objective is to limit the amount of cost associated with the shutdown.  This can be done by pruning the project.  This will limit the major concern of the project being a complete failure.  There may be some parts of the project that can be utilized elsewhere in the company or can be deferred to a later date.  Other concerns about shutting down a project include project team members continuing down the path even though the project should be shut down.  During a potential shutdown project team members may have a psychological, rationalized or social connection to the project.  The concern about shutdown is that the project team will not de-compartmentalize this attachment and take the correct project management actions to close out the project activities.

When shutting down a project there are two major areas that need to be addressed.  The first is damage control.  This includes involving the stakeholders and other members that are impacted by the shutdown.  This activity ranges from easy to hard and this rating is based upon the engagement and need of the end users.  Damage control is one of the hardest tasks to finalize due to the intimate nature of presenting failure of a project.  While it is difficult, it is necessary.  The last area, as discussed previously, includes exploitation of the positives aspects of the project.  This is easy in essence but may be difficult to root out all the positive aspects of the project.  This action not only pulls out the positives for the project’s overall status it also creates a method to recoup morale and potentially creates future efforts to better the organization.

References

Project Management Institute.(2008).A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) Fourth Edition. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.