Activity 5A

1. Identify three (3) required project finalisation activities.

Project finalisation activities may include:

 Completing financial transactions

 Consolidating and storing project data

 Documenting outstanding project issues

2. Explain what these are.

Completing financial transactions

All financial transactions need to be completed and recorded

appropriately and in compliance with legal and accounting requirements
and also for auditing purposes. The project cannot be handed over to the
client with any outstanding monies owed. Financial transactions may
include payments to suppliers, wages for the project team, rent for
premises, utility bills and many more specific to your project.

Consolidating and storing project data

All the documentation and data generated throughout the life of the
project should be gathered, collated in an appropriate manner and stored
securely. The data will be used for the review of the project and should
not be archived until the review is complete. Sensitive data should be
stored securely unless it is of no future value and in these circumstances,
it should be destroyed by shredding or other similar manner. Financial
data should be kept for a minimum of seven years according to legal
requirements.

Documenting outstanding project issues

 Page |1

Hopefully, all issues during the life of the project will have been resolved
but you need to check the relevant registers for any issues, risks or
changes that are unresolved or in the process of being resolved. Any
outstanding project issues should be clearly documented in a report and
discussed with stakeholders and the client prior to handover. Reasons for
the remaining issues should be clearly explained with recommended
solutions.

3. For each activity you identified in Q1, identify which person(s)

you would allocate the task to in your project team/organisation
and explain why you have chosen this person. You may allocate
the responsibility to more than one person if appropriate.

 Completing financial transactions: this would be

allocated to the accountant of the company because he has
the appropriate skills to do this.

 Consolidating and storing project data: in order to

consolidate and store the project data, the registrar of the
company would be selected because he has the relevant
experience to do this.

 Documenting outstanding project issues: the

outstanding project issues can be documented by the
assistant manager of the company as he is expert in this
work.
Page |2
 Page |3

Activity 5B

1. What is a project product?

A project product is anything tangible that has been produced by the

project either as an end item or a component of other products. Because
project products are usually continued to be used within the organisation
on the completion of the project, all of the relevant documentation such as
training manuals, operating instructions, URLs, passwords and
authorities, troubleshooting information, and guarantees, needs to be
handed over to the client in order for the products to function after the
project team depart. Time must, therefore, be spent on preparing this
documentation to handover to the client by the agreed time frame with
any training needs addressed.

2. Provide an example of a project product you produce within your

organisation.

In our project, the project product is the technical instruments that the
company is planning to produce.

3. Using the example project product you identified in Q1, identify

the associated documentation that will be handed over with the
products.
Associated documentation may include:

 'As built' design specifications

 Certificates, guarantees, licenses, indemnities and

warranties
 Page |4

 Product or service specifications

 User, training and installation manuals

 Any other associated documentation.

4. Research and explain the arrangements of the handover process

for your project products and the associated documentation
within your organisation.
The handover of the products and associated documentation may be
supplemented with an overall project handover to operations document
that details the following:

 Document purpose – record of the transfer of all the

information required to operate and/or use the products
handed over including key project documents

 Outline of changes/enhancements – details of any changes

or enhancements made to the original specification and/or
design, including original plans and updated versions, and
version history

 Support – any technical or practical support implemented

throughout the life of the product or for a period of
warranty

 Handover documentation – all documentation associated

with the products

 Risk log – risks concerned with the products themselves,

not the entire risk register of the project

 Issues log – again, any issues that have occurred with the
products, open and closed

 Lessons learned – any advice for improvements in future

production of similar products.
Page |5
 Page |6

Activity 5C

1. What financial obligations must you finalise?

Dependent on the scale of your project you may have financial obligations
to finalise both internally and externally.

Internal financial obligations may include the final accounting for the
overall spend of the project, broken down into the following project
areas:

 Cost-management plan – reconciliation of planned

expenditure and actual expenditure

 Work breakdown structure – how did the actual spend

compare to the budgets allocated to each component of the
WBS?

 Change and risk management – how did changes to the

project affect budgets?

 Procurement records and accounts need to be finalised and

recorded appropriately

 Payroll needs to be finalised and records stored/handed

over appropriately

 Vendors should be given their final payments and

accounts update accordingly; there should be no
outstanding invoices.

External financial obligations relate to outside borrowing; funds that

have been lent by sources other than the stakeholders and investors, such
as bank loans or contracts for services (utilities for example). It is
important to finalise these external financial obligations as, if the
 Page |7

obligation is not honoured or paid in full, it could result in court action

and the seizure of assets of the project and/or the organisation.

2. What legal obligations must you finalise?

The project management service level agreement is a contract established

at the beginning of the project to determine the following:

 Project terms – this generally includes the timeline and the

budget and any penalties for which the project team is
liable if the terms are not met. Any penalties should have
been avoided if you have reviewed the project baselines
effectively throughout and negotiated changes with the
client and stakeholders accordingly

 Outsourcing – how contracts with vendors, contractors and

sub-contractors are managed

 Communication plan – did you meet the terms and

conditions of communications between the stakeholders
and the client?

 Risk insurance – finalising the business liability insurance

or extending it should there be any anticipated issues to
the successful completion of the project

 Confidentiality agreements – ensure confidentiality has

not been breached including employee theft or breach of
intellectual property.

3. What contractual obligations must your finalise?

 Ensuring any changes to contracts and terms and

conditions have been updated following negotiations and
records kept of all the changes made with contracts being
agreed, re-written and signed by both parties where
appropriate and adhered to
 Page |8

 The statement of work or service level agreement was

clearly defined and deliverables clear, amended if
appropriate following the review of the procurement-
management plan and adhered to

 All timelines and schedules were realistic and detailed

clearly with no ambiguities and communication with
vendors confirmed that they were able to meet the
requirements, and if not, actions were put in place to
ensure that they could

 All supply contract schedules were consistent with one

another (such as timelines)

 Cancellation policies were clear and included all

requirements of both parties

 Key personnel were identified and their roles and

responsibilities clearly defined
 Page |9

Activity 5D

1. Identify three (3) project review assessments.

Project review assessments may include:

 Benefits realisation review

 Outcomes evaluation

 Post-implementation review

2. Using a project of your choice, this may be a case study, a

previous project you have completed or a project you are
preparing currently complete the following tasks:
 Select two of the review assessments you identified in Q1
 Explain what these review assessments involve
 P a g e | 10

 Outline how you would complete the relevant documentation.

If using organisational templates, attach copies of the
documents to your work book.

Benefits realisation review

Time should be invested in embedding the procedures and practices that
will lead to full realisation of benefits. The true benefits may not be seen
for five years after completion of the project. For example, in a landscape
gardening project, you would not expect the gardener to rotivate and
prepare the land, plant seeds, bulbs and saplings and then leave them to
bloom alone without any after care and cultivation. The same principle,
although perhaps not as extreme, applies to all projects.

Benefits realisation includes:

 Delivering training

 Carrying out demonstrations

 Preparing training manuals

 Providing help desks and trouble shooting

 Soliciting feedback from employees and the client

 Making changes to the project after it has been completed.

Benefits realisation may not take place immediately after the completion
of the project. It might not occur until six months after the project
implementation review to allow the project time to establish itself.

The benefits realisation review may include the following:

 P a g e | 11

 Purpose of the review – to determine whether the expected

benefits of the project have been realised, and whether any
issues or problems have occurred

 Expected benefits that were documented in the original

business case and project initiation document

 How the benefits have been measured

 Resources used in benefit realisation – what support has

been implemented since the completion of the project?

 Resources required to complete the review

 Actual benefits realised after project handover:

o do they meet the expected benefits, if not, how far

off are they?

o are they different to the expected benefits?

o are there more benefits than expected?

o were the benefits realised faster than expected?

o are there further benefits to be made?

o do changes need to be made to the support structure

in order to realise benefits and if so, is this cost
effective?

 What non-benefits have been realised and what problems

have they caused?

Outcomes evaluation
The outcomes evaluation will be very similar to the benefits realisation
review as outcomes are very similar to benefits. Outcomes and benefits
are the result of your work within the project and directly related to the
project objectives.
 P a g e | 12

The outcomes evaluation would ask the following questions:

 Expected and agreed project outcomes set out at the

beginning of the project, short and long-term

 Key performance indicators to measure the outcomes

 Actual outcomes and whether they meet the initial

expected outcomes including:

o changes to knowledge within the organisation

o changes to actions and behaviour of the organisation

itself and its employees

o changes to conditions.

 Any unexpected and unwanted outcomes that are

detrimental as opposed to beneficial

 Any unexpected but welcome outcomes that have

improved the organisation

 No change at all.
P a g e | 13