Revising the Closure Process

Although closure is a fairly straightforward business, you need to cope with a surprising amount of content for the exams, not least because there are a large number of management products flying about. Be sure then to allow time for revising the process, especially for Foundation where all the information has to be in your head. For Practitioner, you have the relative luxury of being able to look things up in your PRINCE2 manual. However, you still need to remember a lot of this stuff, so that looking something up in the manual during the exam is just a fast check to confirm something, not reading big chunks of the closure chapter to find out large amounts of information.

Revision checklist – Foundation

Scan down this revision checklist and if you can’t tick any item confidently, that warns you that you need to look at the point again as part of your revision:

Yes, it’s the process objectives and the purpose statement again. Are you sure that you’ll be able to recognise the different parts if they come up in a question?

The two triggers for the process: detecting the end of the last stage when checking the stage status in the process Controlling a Stage, or as a Project Board instruction for a ‘crash stop’ – a premature close.

That a premature close instruction can come from the Project Board at any time out if its activity ‘Giving ad hoc direction’ or at a fixed point by it choosing not to authorise work on a following stage or part stage and ordering project closure instead out of the activity ‘Authorize a Stage or Exception Plan’.

The two aspects of the Project Manager’s work: shutting down the project itself and then preparing information such as the End Project Report for the Project Board.

The five activities in the process, what’s happening in each, and who’s responsible for the work in each – that’s mostly the Project Manager with Project Assurance then checking things, but there’s occasional involvement of Project Support.

The End Project Report as the Project Manager’s record of how the project went, and reporting out-turn figures such as the final cost of the project.

That the process, and the End Project Report, compare achievements to date with the objectives set down in the original baselined Project Initiation Documentation (PID) as it was agreed at the end of Initiation, not just the latest PID version which will include changes made during the delivery stages.

That any benefits that come on stream at the end of the project are measured now and reported now.

That there’s no End Stage Report for the final stage. Instead there’s the End Project Report, which covers the whole project including the final stage.

What a follow-on action recommendation is and what sort of work may be passed on as a follow-on action recommendation.

The way in which the process is associated with the seven PRINCE2 principles. There’s more on this in Chapter 19.

How the process uses the management products feeding into it; there are a lot. Have a look in the manual at the products shown as inputs into the activities of the Closing a Project process, and in PRINCE2 For Dummies. [Manual Ch18 activity summary diagrams for the five activities, P2FD Ch9 final panel – Checking out the CP products]

Revision checklist – Practitioner

Do check out the items on the Foundation revision checklist above to be sure that you’re still clear on them, and then have a look at the following additional points to be ready for Practitioner questions:

Understanding that there’s basically no difference in management products between a premature close and a planned close. Both go through similar close-down work in terms of the management products used.

The nature of the key closure products of the Benefits Review Plan, End Project Report and Lessons Report, and what the sections within each are about. Do you know them well enough to be able to spot errors quickly in a faulty example?

That acceptance of the project by the customer is based on the Acceptance Criteria in the Project Product Description (PPD), and that handover also follows what is set down in the PPD.

The nature and content of the management products which feed into the process, how they’re used and where, if necessary, they’re updated.