At the end of a project, after the team is done with the long hours and occasionally short tempers, it’s a challenge to focus on that last project phase: Closing. Team members start to focus on other activities, and it’s often left up to the project manager to play the final act as a solo, archiving the project materials and tying up loose administrivia.

But project closure provides one of the best opportunities for improving your overall project execution. It’s the time when completed objectives can be compared to original intentions, when a team can scrutinize its methods and processes to determine what worked and what didn’t. The team activities of project closure – the “lessons learned” meeting, the closing report, etc. – provide one of the only opportunities for retrospection amid the busy operation of a full portfolio.

One of the best ways to learn about the effectiveness of a project’s management is to evaluate the project through a survey of team members and stakeholders. A written survey helps guide reflection, spark recollection, and focus on key points of execution that require the most vigilance in maintaining project excellence. Surveys collected over a number of projects provide valuable historical insight into the effectiveness of particular methods, and help guide decisions about adapting your PM methods to your organization’s unique circumstances.

In our Resources section on this site, we’ve posted an example of our IT Evolution project evaluation survey form for our registered visitors. It’s built from a number of sources combined with themes from our own experience. Feel free to download and use the survey for your own projects, and start building a history of your successes and improvements.

(If you haven’t registered yet, you can sign up using the “Registration” link on the upper left of the Resources page.)