 Welcome to the Unit 7 review for Strategic Project Management. My name is Dr. Lucinda Stanley. For the past few units, we've been looking at the phases of the project management life cycle. We'll continue that here in Unit 7. Actually, we're going to finish the whole project. But first, a bit of a reminder about how this works. There are seven units in this course. In Unit 1, we learned what a project is, who makes the decision to take a project on, and what the triple constraint theory is. In Unit 2, we were introduced to the project life cycle. In Unit 3, we looked at the initiation phase. In Unit 4, we looked at the planning phase. In Unit 5, we looked at execution or implementation phase. In Unit 6, we looked at monitoring and controlling phase of the project. Here in Unit 7, we'll look at the final phase of the project life cycle, the closing phase. In Unit 7, we're going to look at the importance of evaluating lessons learned as a means to help us be more successful in future projects. Next, we're going to describe the importance of stakeholder approval during the closing phase. We'll examine the various tasks that need to be addressed in the project closing. And we'll discuss the importance of celebrating the project team through rewards and recognition. Just a reminder about why learning outcomes are important. Every resource in the course can be tied back to one of the learning outcomes, which means that all assessments, including the final exam, are directly linked to the learning outcomes. Once you get to the end of the course, review the learning outcomes and see which ones you feel confident about. If there is some that you're not sure about, it's a good idea to go back to the units that cover that outcome and review the materials. This will ensure that you have all the knowledge you need to be successful in the exam. So in this unit, we'll look at some definitions and review some concepts based on the learning outcomes. While you'll find many more vocabulary words in the study guide, in this review, we're going to concentrate on these few to keep an ear or an eye out for them as they come up. Remember this graphic from the Unit 2 review? As we noted in Unit 3, we're going to be seeing this over all of the units basically as we look at each of the five processes of the project lifecycle, initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, and controlling, and closing. In Unit 7, we're looking at the final phase of the project, the closing. This is the phase that happens once the project has been fully implemented and it's ready for the final deliverables to be, well, delivered. As you've seen, once the project implementation has been completed, the project team is not yet done. There are many tasks that need to be completed before the team can go their separate ways. The team will need to formally notify the stakeholders that the project has been completed. They need to make sure any vendors they hired have completed their remaining tasks and that they're paid. They need to make sure that anyone who provided them with materials or labor are paid. They will need to get stakeholder approval, more on that in a minute. They will also need to collect lessons learned, more on that in a minute as well. And finally, they need to celebrate, oh, more on that in a minute too. Having stakeholders sign off on the completed project is the best feeling for a project team. It means they delivered what they had been assigned to deliver and the stakeholder is happy with the results most of the time. There are times when the project is not successful and simply ends without the final project being delivered. This is an important lesson to be learned as well. So how does the team know if the project is successful? Let's find out. The team can conduct a project audit. They can actually involve the stakeholders in this as well. They are looking to see that they met the requirements of the project, that the deliverables were up to the quality standards of the stakeholder, that the project was completed on time and that it was completed within the budget. Only the initiating stakeholder can make this determination, as a project team can provide the stakeholder with examples of how they met each element. If the project team has been communicating with the stakeholder all along, this process should be relatively easy and painless. One of the most important elements of the closing phase of the project management lifecycle is to report on lessons learned. Lessons learned are anything that the project management team learned while working on the project. These could be positive things that they learned about the workflow or budgeting or negative things that they learned that they wish they'd done differently. Capturing these lessons learned in a formal report can really help the team come to understand what a lot they had accomplished and how much better they understand the project process than they did at the beginning. The most beneficial lessons learned reports are those that are begun in the execution phase so that important information isn't left out. Then it can be cleaned up and formalized once the project is complete. Let's not think that once the report is generated at the end of a project that it's never used again. It is or it should be. Project managers can use the lessons learned on one project to help them initiate and plan another project. Maybe one that is similar, but even if it's not, some lessons learned are universal, meaning they can be transferred to other projects. Celebrating the end of the project is probably the thing that gets forgotten most of the time. It's not that project managers don't appreciate the effort their team put into the project. It's just that things get busy and everyone is likely ready to move on to something else. However, it is important to bring closure to the team, not just the stakeholders. Project managers could celebrate with a pizza party or a letter of recommendation to those team members who did outstanding work. At the very least, the project managers should send an email to each team member thanking them for their contribution. In this unit, we look closely at the closing or closure phase of the project lifecycle. We learned about collecting lessons learned to be used in subsequent projects, some of the various tasks that take place during the closure phase, the importance of getting stakeholder approval and conducting a project audit. And finally, we discussed the importance of a celebration to thank the team and give them closure before they head off to another project. That's it. You've gone through all the content and the course. Congratulations. Next up is the final exam. To prepare for the exam, you can take the practice exam, review the study guide and review these videos again.