Project Closure Report and Project Management Templates

To ensure that your project is closed effectively, you need to use a Project Closure Report from our set of Project Management Templates. This report enables you to tell your Project Sponsor how and when you want to close your project, allowing them to approve the actions needed to close your project efficiently. To help you do this, we’ve described here:

How to create a Project Closure Report

The Project Closure Report allows you to document the reasons for closing the project, as well as the steps you intend to take to do it properly. There is a lot of ground to cover—so we’ve set out here each of the sections you need to include within a Project Closure Report, to help you to do it quickly and efficiently:

Section 1: Completion Criteria

Before you take action to close the project, you need to determine whether all of the project closure criteria have been fully satisfied. For example:

• Has the project vision has been achieved?
• Have all the project objectives have been met?
• Has the project has resulted in the stated benefits.
• Have all of the deliverables been produced?

You will need to perform a formal review of the project to determine whether these criteria have been met. The Project Board may want to see proof, so you’re best to attach the detailed results of the review to your Project Closure Report once completed.

Section 2: Outstanding Items

If you’re confident that the project has met all the completion criteria listed above, then the next step is to list any outstanding items. These are typically activities listed as incomplete on the Project Plan. However, they may also be risks, issues or general items that are outstanding and require attention.

As you list each outstanding item, you also need to identify the actions that are needed to fully resolve them. 

Section 3: Closure Actions

After determining that the project is ready for closure and listing the outstanding items, you can now list all of the actions needed to close your project. These actions may include:

• Handing over the final deliverables to the customer
• Collating and filing all project documentation
• Terminating all supplier contracts and contractors
• Releasing project staff, equipment and materials
• Communicating the closure of the project to stakeholders.

Once you have completed the 3 sections above within your Project Management Templates, you’re ready to complete a Project Closure Report. After completion, the report is presented to your Project Sponsor for signoff. 

By getting your Project Sponsor to sign-off on the Project Closure Report, it gives you senior management approval for the completion of the project. 

It also gives you the authority needed to complete your closure actions quickly and efficiently, thereby increasing your chances of success. Download a Project Closure Report template now.