Goal
End the project deliberately: confirm every obligation is met, capture lessons, archive records, revoke access and settle accounts — instead of letting it fade out.
Inputs → outputs
Inputs
- Handover record, SOW
- Risk register, change log
- Actuals: effort, defects, time
Deliverables
- Project closure / contract liquidation record
- Retrospective & lessons-learned report
- Indexed project archive
- List of revoked access
Teams & roles
- Project Management / Scrum Masterleads closure and the retrospective
- Project Management Office (PMO)archiving, updating process assets
- Legal & Financecontract liquidation, final invoice
- DevOps / SRErevokes access, rotates secrets
- Application Security (AppSec)confirms no leftover access
- Client (Product Owner / sponsor)confirms completion, joins the retro
RACI matrix
R — does the work · A — accountable, final sign-off (exactly one A per activity) · C — consulted before · I — informed after.
| Activity | BA | PM | Dev | QA | Sec | Ops | Legal | PMO | Client |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Check deliverables against the SOW | R | A | · | · | · | · | · | · | C |
| Whole-project retrospective | C | A | C | C | · | · | · | · | C |
| Archive project records | · | R | · | · | · | · | · | A | · |
| Revoke access & rotate secrets | · | · | · | · | R | A | · | · | I |
| Settlement & contract liquidation | · | C | · | · | · | · | A | · | R |
| Update templates & process from lessons | · | R | · | · | · | · | · | A | · |
BA = Business Analysis (BA); PM = Project Management / Scrum Master; Dev = Engineering (FE · BE · Mobile); QA = Quality Assurance (QA/QC); Sec = Application Security (AppSec); Ops = DevOps / SRE; Legal = Legal & Finance; PMO = Project Management Office (PMO); Client = Client (Product Owner / sponsor)
Quality gate
Closure record signed; team access revoked; lessons fed into templates and process.
Entry criteria
- Handover record signed
- Hypercare finished
Exit criteria
- No open SOW items, or a listed transfer to warranty
- Retrospective produced improvement actions, each with an owner
- Archive complete
- All temporary team access revoked and recorded
- Final invoice issued; contract liquidated or moved to maintenance
Activities
- 1.Check against the SOW: every deliverable handed over and accepted; list items moving to warranty
- 2.Whole-project retrospective with the team and, where possible, the client
- 3.Archive records: contracts, documents, minutes, source at the handover tag
- 4.Revoke the team’s access to client systems; rotate secrets the team used
- 5.Settle: final invoice, contract liquidation or move to a maintenance contract
- 6.Update process assets: templates, checklists, actual-vs-planned estimates
Checklist
Tick to self-review — 0/5. Ticks stay in this browser only and are not sent anywhere.
Document templates
Markdown (.md) files: open in any editor, or paste into Word / Google Docs. Each states its purpose, who fills it in and when.
Client involvement
- Confirm there are no outstanding items
- Join the retrospective and give candid feedback
- Confirm the team’s access has been revoked
Tools
- CT Work
- Google Drive / OneDrive (lưu trữ)
- Trình quản lý mật khẩu
Reference standards
- PMBOK® Guide 6th ed. — Close Project or Phase (4.7)
- Close Project or Phase process: finalise, transfer, archive
- ISO 21502:2020
- Guidance on project closure and post-project evaluation
- CMMI (ISACA) — mức khái niệm
- Lessons become organisational process assets
- Retrospective Prime Directive (Norm Kerth, 2001)
- Blameless retrospectives
Common pitfalls
- Projects that fade out with no closure record
- Forgetting to revoke access → security risk for both sides
- Retrospectives turning into blame sessions
- Writing lessons down and changing nothing
Real example
cuongthai.com: the repo’s operating notes keep a "Known Error Patterns" table — each incident has a date, symptom and lesson, and each lesson becomes a concrete check in a checklist or script (e.g. the 404 smoke test added after a stale build went live). A small-scale version of "lessons become process assets".
Where to learn
Subjects and courses on cuongthai.com that teach this stage’s work.