project handover

 

Once the project is completed its products then these must be passed on to those who will operate and maintain the products within their operational life.  It is important that this happens before the project actually closes.  

 

This may happen as a single release at the end of the project, or the project may have been undertaking phased delivery and hence hand products over to the customer during the stages, in which case this would be the final product or products of the phased delivery.

 

As part of handing over these products, the benefits review plan may need to be updated to include the resources and timing for post-project benefit reviews tied to the performance of the project products in their operational use. 

 

It is important to understand that it is not a responsibility of the project to carry out such post project benefit reviews, only to plan for them.

 

The project manager working with the project management team will prepare follow-on action recommendations to include any uncompleted or unfinished work.  These will include any current issues and any outstanding risks which if they were to occur, would do so in the operational life of the end product.  

 

The project manager will want to agree who is the owner and manage these issues and risks after the project has closed.

 

The Configuration Management Strategy document should be checked to confirm how the products are to be handed over to those who will look after them in their operational life.  

 

This may include ensuring that suitable service agreements or maintenance contracts have been drawn up and in place (it is not normally the responsibility of the project to fund such agreements and contracts).

 

The operations and maintenance groups need to confirm that they have accepted the products and the project manager should obtain appropriate acceptance records and add to the project files.  

 

This will then transfer responsibility for the products to those parts of the organisation.  Don’t forget to update each product’s Configuration Item Record to reflect that their status is now ‘operational’.

 

It is important for organisation to learn from their experiences with projects, in particular by capturing what actually happened, then be used to improve estimates for future projects.  One of the seven principles within PRINCE2 is to learn from experience, and the following actions will help us do that:

 

Refer to the original Project Initiation Documentation baselines in the initiation stage and against this review he approved changes as defined by its latest version.  Using input from the project management team, the project manager will prepare an End Project Report.  

 

This should include an assessment of the results of the project against the expected benefits in the Business Case, how the project performed against its objectives, having seen performed, and a review of the project products.

 

In a similar way the project manager will prepare a Lessons Report that may be applied for future projects.  This will be sent to corporate or programme management, and it would be a good idea if a copy was sent to your organisation’s project office so that these lessons can be embedded within the organisation.

 

The Lessons Report should document what went well, what went badly, and any recommendations for the future.  The review should be held of any useful measurements such as work effort costs and duration, how quality checking tracked errors or not, and any useful ideas about how to tailor PRINCE2 for similar projects in the future.

 

When the project manager has confirmed that the project can be closed, he or she will send a closure recommendation to the project board.  Here are the actions project manager should ensure now happens:

 

 

Secure and archive all project information using the Configuration Management Strategy to determine how it should happen, prepare and send a draft project closure notification for review tby the project board stating that the project has now closed.

 

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