Closing a project
Embedding and sustaining change
This page refers to project management in the embed and sustain step of change. The changes at this step will become part of “business as usual.” At this point, you should formally close the change project.
A project can close at any point in the change cycle. This may happen if a change is reviewed for implementation and data shows it is not meeting goals. In this case a change may be abandoned.
To ensure you close a project effectively, you should:
- review and update the business case in the project initiation document
- review the measurement approach and plan, and overall project plan to ensure the project’s aims and objectives are met
- confirm all project outputs are complete
- write a summary of the project’s successes against its objectives
- review outstanding actions at the end of the project, including those from risk and issue registers
- record learning and lessons learned from the project, which will help to identify actions for improvement. This will guide future changes in the organisation
- write a formal statement that the project is ending
Review for spread
Once you embed and sustain the change and agree to spread it to other locations or services, start a new project.