Support Plan
Process
A project support plan is a document that shifts a service, application or program from design or pilot to production. The primary objective of a project support plan is to guide the systems support stakeholders (administrators, operators, maintainers) to understand the system requirements, tools, and resources needed for continuous maintenance and development of the service, application or program after the transition period.
The project manager is responsible for drafting and developing a project support plan with input from stakeholders, business owners, project team members, and support teams.
The support plan usually starts towards the end of the project and is completed before the service, application or program is in production.
Lessons Learned
Process
Capturing lessons learned is an integral part of every project and serves several purposes. While the finalization of a formal lessons learned document is completed during the project closeout process, capturing lessons learned should occur throughout the project lifecycle to ensure all information is documented in a timely and accurate manner. The lessons learned document serves as a valuable tool for use by other project managers within an organization who are assigned similar projects. This document should not only describe what went wrong during a project and suggestions to avoid similar occurrences in the future, but it should also describe what went well and how similar projects may benefit from this information. This document should be communicated to the project sponsor, team members, and Project Management Office (PMO) for inclusion in the organizational assets and archives as part of the lessons learned database. If the organization does not have a PMO then other, formal means of communicating the lessons learned should be utilized to ensure all project managers are included.
The project manager is responsible for creating and developing a lessons learned summary
Every project experience has “lessons” to offer. These lessons are discovered through the project closure process, providing the means by which the project experience can be examined and evaluated to find underlying lessons. And the overall goal of this process is “continuous improvement” – to utilize the experience gained from one project to benefit future projects and improve project management capabilities. And, this is all realized through the “lesson learned.”
Project Closure Report
Process
A project closure report is the final document that assesses the success of the project and also catalogs project deliverables and officially ends the project. The primary objective of a project closure report is to provide a complete picture of the successes and failures of a project. The project closure report should include all important project information that would help stakeholders, auditors, and future project managers to clearly understand what was accomplished during the project and how the work was completed.
The project manager is responsible for creating and developing a project closure report.
The closure report is usually started towards the end of the project and completed when all the project outputs have been delivered to the business owner, stakeholders, and sponsors or when it has been decided to close the project for some other reason. This may be the result of changed priorities within the department or unit, a loss of funding, or a deadline date reached.