Closing a project should include the following elements:
Recognition. McDonalds has its longstanding Employee of the Month picture frame program. Dell has a Volunteers of Distinction program for its employees who become involved with volunteer projects. Toastmasters International has numerous awards for its members completing various tasks and terms of office. The best programs have five aspects: Achievable: The standards are high but not so high as to discourage all but the overachievers from trying to reach them. Objective: People need to know what to expect and to perceive the granting of awards as not being an overly subjective process. Practical: Include rewards that are sensible motivators. Time off and cash don’t make much sense if you are short staffed and cash strapped. However, when the coffers are full and you are in a slow season, time and cash would be better motivators than a coffee table ornament. Timely: The closer the granting of an award to the completion of the task, the better. Useful: Wherever possible, measure and reward something that helps to produce desired results. Documentation. Most companies tend to do a pretty good job of documenting completions since it usually involves financial accounting aspects. Not-for-profit organizations are often notorious for failing to properly document project completions and address transfer issues. Doing a good job of these aspects can make life much easier for those taking over the offices in the future. For example, if an organization has an annual conference, it should prepare an electronic file with all the materials used to plan, promote, operate and complete the event. Maybe burn a CD and give it to the following year’s conference chair. Review and re-examination. This is part of the sandwich – the stuff in the middle. Between the recognition and celebration aspects, this is a great place to conduct an evaluation and bring in constructive feedback so that improvements can be made in future projects. Such feedback should include some positives (things that worked well), suggestions for improvement and a positive overall. A sandwich within the sandwich. These reviews can provide tremendous growth opportunities for those involved, as well as helpful in improving the quality of the projects themselves. Closure & cleanup. Aspects of closure normally include getting paid and paying everybody, completing any outstanding paperwork, filing any required reports, briefing anyone who needs to be briefed, tossing out the trash and cleaning up the factory, warehouse or workspace. Generally, once this is done, the slate should be clear and wherever possible there should not be lingering remains from old projects interfering with future activities. Celebration. The Hollywood people have mastered this with wrap parties and big events such as the Academy Awards. Every time a film is completed, tradition calls for a “wrap party” where everyone involved in the production gets together for a celebration, wrapping up the production. The Academy Awards are an extreme case where the industry in a very public way awards its own for various things while bringing greater recognition to the film and television industry as a whole.
Build an event but keep it in proper proportion. For a small group project at work, ordering in lunch and having a light review and review wrap-up session would work great. The team leader could acknowledge everyone’s contribution, perhaps with a more senior executive coming by to say a few words and present awards. The meal itself could be the award but it is usually better to have something that goes beyond the event. Cash and time off are great but so is something tangible that can be put on display by the person who has earned it. For a bigger project, a big splash at a hotel or conference venue might give the best results. What such an event should look like and how big it should be depends on a number of factors. The important thing is to scale it appropriately. Putting an event together can take considerable time, money and effort, so some thought should be put into planning and managing it properly. Overachievers beware. Finishing does not mean starting. There is nothing wrong with using a closing event to announce something new. In fact, this is often a great way to launch a new project. But launching something new should not undermine the thing just completed. Focus the events surrounding the completion on the completion, not on the new beginnings. This serves to preserve the integrity of the activity just completed and to allow those involved to take a breath, enjoy the prizes, tidy up the paperwork, reflect, mop up any odds and ends, and freely enjoy the celebration without getting prematurely wrapped up in the next thing. These above completion elements might seem obvious to someone reading them but there is often no formal process in a company or organization for carrying them out effectively. Those that have these processes tend to do a much better job of completing projects with a flourish than those that do not. Larger and more successful companies and organizations tend to be the ones that have such processes. Those who do a great job finishing projects leave fellow team members motivated towards getting involved and doing great things on future projects. A well completed task also has enough properly completed documentation associated with it that anyone who wants to learn from or duplicate the results in the future is able to do so without having to figure it out from scratch. If you have any tips or ideas to share on finishing, please post a comment. Peter Paul Roosen and Tatsuya Nakagawa are co-founders of Atomica Creative Group, a specialized strategic product marketing firm. Through leading edge insight and research, sound strategic planning and effective project management, Atomica helps companies achieve greater success in bringing new products to market and in improving their existing businesses. They have co-authored Overcoming Inventoritis: The Silent Killer of Innovation now available.
