Evaluating & Reporting Project Success

1. Preparing Final Reports

The creation of a project’s final reports occurs during the closing process. These reports are compiled by the project manager with the help of those that have the knowledge and data to create them.

The details in these reports are guided by organizational standards and project governance. The project manager must document the project completely before the project can be considered officially closed.

The schedule and budget were monitored and managed in Phase Three. During that time, new baselines may have been established due to change requests, or the baseline from the project scoping phase was maintained throughout the project. In either case, during the closing process, the current schedule and budget are compared to the current baseline, and reports on any deviations from the baseline are documented.

Final calculations, which were conducted during Phase Four, are also part of the final reports. These include:

• Performance statistics on tasks
• Reports on the quality of the deliverables
• How the requirements were met by the results of the project

2. Evaluating Project Success

The details in these reports allow the project manager and the audience for the reports to then evaluate the project as a whole. This is accomplished by considering the answers to the following questions:

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When conducting this evaluation process, it’s also worth noting if the schedule or the budget was unrealistic so that future projects might plan their time and cost more accurately.