Step 10: Close the Project or Phase

Here is the last step — and it is more than “we are done”. Closing well means formally finishing every activity: validating the scope, confirming that the intended benefits were achieved, preparing the transition to operations and recording the lessons learned. Before you start, confirm two prerequisites defined in Step 5: the acceptance criteria and the final acceptance process.

For your career: closing well and recording lessons turns every project into a step up. Do the same with your own path: what did this cycle teach you for the next one?

Validate the scope

Verify that the products and services delivered comply with the requirements in the baseline and obtain the customer’s formal approval that the project is complete and that every specification was met. Open action items must be officially closed or handed to day-to-day operations. To formalize it, use the Deliverable Acceptance template.

Verify the value and the benefits realized

Validating the scope confirms that the deliverables meet the requirements. But the 8th Edition of the PMBOK® Guide reminds us that projects exist to create value — so closing must also verify whether the intended benefits were achieved. Go back to the OKR and the justification (business case) defined in Step 1 and ask: was the expected value delivered? When the benefits only materialize later (revenue growth, cost reduction), record how, when and by whom they will be measured, transferring that responsibility to operations.

Transition to operations

With final acceptance in hand, prepare the transition: provide the documentation and training needed so there is no doubt about what was delivered. The Product Transition template helps you cover the transition period, the procedures (how to handle errors in operation), the training, who is responsible on the project side and on the operations side, the open points and the recommendations.

Lessons learned

Talking about lessons learned is talking about quality and continuous improvement — it is the foundation of getting better. We only improve if we learn from our mistakes and our successes. They can be formal or informal, in a group or individual; what matters is making sure you learn from every project. Record the planned × actual (were the objectives met? was it delivered on time and on budget?), the strengths and weaknesses of the processes and the recommendations for the next projects. Use the Lessons Learned template as a reference.

Critical success factors of closing

• End-user acceptance;
• Business objectives and anticipated benefits achieved;
• Project objectives achieved;
• Transition to operations well documented and the operations team well trained.

Predictive × Agile

In the Agile approach, closing is not all left to the end: every Sprint already delivers an accepted increment (one that met the Definition of Done and was approved at the Review). And the Retrospective works as continuous lessons learned — every iteration the team reviews what to keep and what to improve, applying PDCA to itself. Even so, the project formalizes its closing with the final acceptance and the consolidated record of the lessons.

🎯 Your turn — Close the project or phase

🎯 Objective: validate the scope, verify the value and the benefits, prepare the transition to operations and record the lessons learned.

✅ Before you start: acceptance criteria and the final acceptance process defined in planning (Step 5).

🗃️ On your board: review every list on the board with the team and the customer.

📋 Checklist:

1. Validate the scope: check each deliverable against its requirements and obtain the customer’s formal approval.
2. Verify the value: go back to the justification and the OKRs from Step 1 — were the Key Results achieved?
3. Close the open items or hand them officially to operations.
4. Prepare the transition (documentation and training) and record the lessons learned.

🎁 Your deliverable: the project formally closed, with the value verified, the transition under way and the lessons recorded.  🛠️ Tools: ProjectAdm + acceptance, transition and lessons-learned templates.

💡 Accelerate with AI: run Step 10 in the course menu. It reads your board — the deliverables, the OKRs from Step 1 and what was actually done — and hands you the prompt already filled in, asking the AI for the closing checklist and a draft of the lessons learned. Paste the answer into the “0. Inbox” card and run Step 10 again: the OKR result and the lessons are recorded on the board.

💬 Tip: record the lessons even if you are alone or with only a couple of colleagues — what matters is getting better with every project.

🎁 Your artifact — the Lessons Learned in Word, generated from your board

When you finish Step 10, Project Together generates the Lessons Learned (Word .docx) into _saida/documentos/, with the planned × actual, the strengths and weaknesses and the recommendations — read straight from your board.

🎉 Congratulations! You have walked the 10 steps and taken a project from the page to delivery — in the approach your context asked for. Now it is about repeating it, improving every cycle, and turning every project into a step up.