Project Manager
Project Team Members
Project Sponsor and / or Project Director
Customers
Consumers
A project is considered complete when it has been successfully implemented and transitioned to the performing organization and approved by the Project Sponsor. At this point in the project management lifecycle, the responsibilities of the Project Manager are to assess how closely the project met Customer needs, highlight what worked well, learn from mistakes made during the project, identify patterns and trends, derive ways to improve upon processes executed throughout the project, and, most importantly, communicate results. The purpose of Conduct Post-Implementation Review is to gather the information required to meet those responsibilities, and to present the information in a Post-Implementation Report.
5.1.1 Solicit Feedback
The most important measures of the success of a project are whether the product was developed and delivered successfully and how well the needs of the Customers have been met. The most effective way to determine these measures is to Solicit Feedback.
The Project Manager should gather feedback using a survey appropriate to the project. Depending on the size and type of the project and the structure of the performing organization, different surveys may be required for different stakeholder groups, and surveys will need to be distributed to the appropriate individuals. At a minimum, feedback should be solicited from the Project Sponsor and Project Team members who performed the tasks in the Project Schedule. The Project Manager should determine if surveys should also be given to Customer Representatives, Consumers, or other stakeholders in order to collect sufficient information for assessing the success of the project in meeting its goals and their needs. The survey must also assess the outcome of the project and the performance of the Project Team and performing organization. The Project Manager must stress to all survey participants the importance of their honest feedback as one of the primary mechanisms for assessing the project’s performance.
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It is very important to solicit feedback from the Project Team. Because they have a different point of view from that of Customers and Consumers, Project Team members provide an “inside look” at the way the project was executed. They are also an important resource for communicating lessons learned and best practices. |
The written survey should be distributed, in either electronic or hard copy form, with a specific due date for its completion. The Project Manager should follow up if the survey is not returned on time. If distribution is extensive, it may be helpful to keep a list of to whom and when the survey was sent and returned.
The Project Manager also has the option of conducting a survey in person or over the telephone. An interview survey can often be more effective than a written one. While those responding to a written survey are limited to answering the questions as they are written, an intuitive Project Manager will be able to expand upon the verbal responses of the survey participant, gathering information that might otherwise not be uncovered. In some cases, however, participants may be reluctant to disclose information as honestly in person. The Project Manager may not be the appropriate person to administer the survey interview to some Stakeholder groups.
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It is also important to obtain feedback on the performance of the Project Manager! The Project Manager’s immediate supervisor, or the person the Project Manager was accountable to in the Project Governance, needs to take responsibility for obtaining honest feedback from the Project Sponsor, Customer, and Project Team. |
Once survey feedback has been collected, the Project Manager must review, analyze, and summarize the results for presentation at the Project Assessment Meeting.
The following is a suggested list of categories to use when compiling survey information:
Product Effectiveness
Triple Constraint (Scope, Budget, Schedule) Management
Risk Management
Communications Management
Acceptance Management
Organizational Change Management
Issues Management
Product Implementation and Transition
Performance of performing Organization
Performance of Project Team
Summarized feedback will be used during the Project Assessment Meeting as a starting point for identifying lessons learned and best practices to use in future projects. It will also be included in the Post-Implementation Report created at the end of Project Closeout.
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A project may come in on time, under budget, and meeting all defined quality standards. Every deliverable may have been 100% error free and perfectly consistent with the Project Scope. BUT, if the Customer is not satisfied with the outcome, the project cannot be considered a success! |
The goal of this task is for the Project Manager to meet with select members of the Project Team and stakeholder community to present the summarized results of the feedback surveys, discuss all other aspects of the completed project, gain consensus on what was successful and what was not, and derive best practices and lessons learned.
In addition to the Project Team, the Project Manager should consider inviting Project Managers from the performing organization with experience on similar projects. Based on experience and prior knowledge, other Project Managers can provide information and insight on the assessment process. It is a good idea for the Project Manager to distribute the summarized survey results to each participant in advance of the Project Assessment Meeting, to allow them to come prepared to address the contents.
In order to provide the best possible products and services to Customers, performing organization management must strive to continuously improve the way Cornell projects are managed and products are delivered. During the course of the assessment meeting, participants will consider the summarized feedback results and the experience of the Project Managers in attendance to discuss and assess the performance of the project. Based upon these discussions, the group will identify and agree upon lessons learned. These lessons will not only benefit the current Project Team, they will also help managers and team members of similar projects. The lessons may be positive or negative. Lessons learned must not simply be identified during the meeting. It is also important to document each one and develop an action plan describing when and how they might be implemented for future projects.
During the course of the project, the Project Manager, Customer, and Project Team members most likely recognized certain procedures that, when exercised, improved the production of a deliverable, streamlined a process, or suggested ways to improve standardized templates. Best practices are documented as part of the Project Assessment Meeting and later shared with other Project Managers so they can be repeated. In some cases, the outstanding “successes” might be translated into new procedures to be followed by future projects.
After the Project Assessment Meeting, the Project Manager prepares a Post-Implementation Report. In the report, the Project Manager distills information gleaned from the discussion and organizes it according to the feedback categories described above, adding information on key project metrics. The report documents the effectiveness of the product in meeting the needs of the Customer, the effectiveness of project management and the Project Team, how well the performing organization supported the project, lessons learned, best practices to be used in future projects, and the key project metrics that will enable the performing organization to compare success measures across projects. It also contains recommendations for improvement to be used by other projects of similar size and scope. (See Figure 5-4, the CPMM Project Post-Implementation Report) During Perform Administrative Closeout, the report is archived in the project repository.
The Project Manager must present or distribute the Post-Implementation Report to members of the performing organization. In performing organizations that undertake many projects, it is most effective to assign an individual or unit to take ownership of collecting and organizing the information, teaching the lessons learned, and implementing the best practices throughout the organization.
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A central repository, owned and maintained by someone within your performing organization, provides a place where lessons learned and best practices can be archived for use by all Project Managers in the organization. Over time, as more and more information is added, it will become part of an invaluable knowledge base that, when leveraged, will translate into tremendous improvements for your projects! |
Lessons learned and best practices from a variety of Cornell projects will contribute to the continuous improvement of this Guidebook.
Project Manager
Team Leader
The purpose of Perform Administrative Closeout is to perform all administrative tasks required to bring the project to an official close.
The Project Manager or Team Leader should take the time to document his/her feedback on the accomplishments and performance of each Project Team member. As the person most aware of the day-to-day activities performed by the Project Team, the Team Leader or Project Manager is the most appropriate person to provide honest and accurate feedback. Feedback documentation should be prepared and reviewed with the individual team members first. Following this performance discussion, the documentation is submitted promptly to each Project Team member’s immediate supervisor to be used as input to performance appraisals. The performance feedback mechanisms (appraisal forms, project exit interviews, etc.) specific to the performing organization should be used.
Throughout the course of the project, the Project Manager maintained a project repository. As the project progressed, the purpose of the repository was to create a central point of reference for all project materials to be used by anyone involved in the project. Once the project comes to an official close, the repository provides an audit trail documenting the history and evolution of the project.
During Project Closeout, the Project Manager should examine the repository to ensure that all relevant project-related material, documents produced, decisions made, issues raised and correspondence exchanged have been captured. In addition, the Post-Implementation Report should be included.
When the project is officially closed, the project repository should include the following materials:
Project description/definition documents such as the Project Charter and Project Initiation Plan
Project Plan (Detail)
Project Schedules – retain all copies electronically, but only include the baseline and final schedule in the hardcopy repository
Project financials
Project Scope changes and requests log
Project Status Reports
Team member progress reports and timesheets
Issues log and details (open and resolved)
Project acceptance log by deliverable
Project Deliverable Approval Forms, with original signatures
Risk Management Worksheets
Audit results, if encountered
Correspondence, including any pivotal or decision-making memos, letters, e-mail, etc.
Meeting minutes, results and/or actions
Final Project Approval Form, with original signatures
Post-Implementation Report
A hard copy repository should be archived in a designated documentation area. It may be made available electronically at the discretion of the Project Sponsor and or Project Director in accordance with organizational records management policies.
