Manage Project Closure

Closure is not just "the project ended" — it is a formal set of activities: confirming deliverables meet acceptance criteria, obtaining formal sign-off, closing out contracts, releasing resources, archiving documents, and finalizing lessons learned. A project that runs out of funding or gets cancelled still needs a closure process — PMI tests this directly, since students often assume closure only applies to successful completions.

The most commonly tested trap: a PM closes a project or a phase without documented stakeholder/customer acceptance. Even if the work is objectively complete, PMI's correct answer sequence almost always includes obtaining formal acceptance before administrative closure activities.

Study focus: lessons learned should be finalized and stored in an organizational process assets repository, not just discussed informally in a closing meeting — this makes them available to future projects, which is the entire point of capturing them.