Activity:  Prepare for Project Close-Out

Prepare for Project Close-Out occurs after the final delivery of software in the Transition Phase. The expectation is that there remain no problems that will preclude formal acceptance, and that any issues that do remain are documented and handed over for resolution to the customer or other maintenance organization. A final Status Assessment will be prepared for the Project Acceptance Review, at which the customer should acknowledge that all deliverables - product, documentation, supporting environment, etc. - and activities, such as installation and training, have been completed according to the contract and its supporting plans. If the customer does not give this acceptance, then there may have to be another iteration to resolve the issues that block acceptance.

Update Project Close-Out Plan and Schedule Activities

The outline of the required activities already exists in the Project Close-Out Plan section of the Software Development Plan. This was prepared early in the project and will probably need to be updated at this time. The Project Manager should ensure that a formal schedule for project termination activities is constructed and agreed with the customer and the project's own organization. This schedule should be captured in the Software Development Plan.

Schedule Final Configuration Audits

The Project Manager arranges for the final functional and physical configuration audits to be conducted according to Perform Configuration Audit.

Conduct a Project Post-Mortem Review

A post-mortem review is held to determine whether the project is ready for final, formal acceptance by the customer, and subsequent close-out. The Status Assessment for the previous iteration and the Issues List are reviewed to make sure any residual issues are understood and have an owner in the support and maintenance organization. If there was a formal acceptance test, the status of results and corrective actions should be reviewed, to ensure there are no showstoppers going into the formal Project Acceptance Review. The state of deployment should be examined to ensure that installation, training and transition have completed, or that remaining activities can complete without prejudice to acceptance. The Project Manager produces a Status Assessment that captures the results of the post-mortem review and the configuration audit, in preparation for the Project Acceptance Review.

Complete Acceptance Action Items

There may be some remaining actions following the Project Acceptance Review and acceptance may be conditional upon completion of these. The Project Manager initiates work to resolve these items.

Close Out the Project

The project manager handles the remaining administrative tasks of project termination. These will include:

• Ensuring that the project is formally accepted: the contract and the Product Acceptance Plan will describe the requirements. In the end, what is needed, in effect, is signed agreement from the customer that all contracted deliveries have been made, meet the contracted requirements and are accepted into ownership by the customer; all contracted activities (including acceptance test, if any) have been successfully completed; and that the customer takes all further responsibility (warranty and latent defect claims aside), for the products and any residual issues and actions associated with them.
• Settling the project's finances - making sure all payments have been received and all suppliers and subcontractors paid. Organizational policy or other regulatory requirement may also require a more formal audit process at project termination, covering the project's finances, budgeting process, and assets.
• Archiving all project documentation and records.
• Transferring any remaining (non-deliverable) hardware and environment assets to the owning organization's pool of assets.
• Transfer the project measurements to the corporate historical database.
• Reassign remaining project staff: if possible, this should not be done abruptly. Most projects can accommodate a gradual ramp-down of staff levels, and allow a smoother transition of staff to other projects. The project manager should ensure that the project knowledge and responsibilities of departing staff have been transferred to those remaining. Staff performance reviews should also be conducted as staff are transferred.

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