What does your team do when a project is finally complete? Hopefully, you take time to celebrate the win and recognize everyone’s hard work and dedication. While you’re enjoying the relief and a bit of revelry, you should also have processes in motion to help your stakeholders move from a project mindset to a longer-term operational stance. With the initiative-related work wrapping up, it’s now time for them to run, use, maintain, and optimize what your team has helped bring to fruition as part of the project, whether that’s occupancy in a new building, the adoption of a more comprehensive software platform, or the use of updated production equipment.
Your project stakeholders were likely active participants in the initiative, but they may not have gained the same level of visibility your team built throughout the many tasks they completed in bringing the project to a successful completion. With some planning and a few targeted steps, you can ensure your stakeholders have what they need to confidently take over day-to-day activities once the project is done.
1 – Provide documentation. Project teams typically gather a wide variety of records, manuals, schematics, certificates, quality testing results, and other items as part of the execution process. These types of information hold significant value for stakeholders, who may need to refer to the documentation you’ve assembled as they settle into the post-project environment. Troubleshooting a piece of hardware, for example, is much easier when you have the installation manual to help guide you. Implementation records and reports from beta users provide helpful parameters that give stakeholders ideas on where they might be able to optimize existing software processes or where new automations can be integrated to offload repetitive or time-consuming tasks.
2 – Hand off training responsibilities. The educational component of your project may end once rollout activities are complete. However, follow-on training may still be needed to ensure users can safely and efficiently perform their jobs. Refresher training programs reinforce best practices and remind users about ways to save time or reduce occupational risk. New user training is also important to help incoming employees quickly adopt the organization’s preferred practices and understand the nuances of individual workflows. Even if your project work didn’t include developing a comprehensive training program, you should provide the names of any instructors you contacted when researching the nature and level of education that was most appropriate in case stakeholders want to connect with them later.
3 – Communicate next steps. Stakeholders’ participation in the initiative may not have provided them with the information they need to take full ownership of the project’s deliverables, whether those are services, products, or other resources. Perhaps you’re waiting for approval to begin a linked project that expands on the capabilities delivered in the recent effort. Or the next step could be as straightforward as reminding stakeholders that they need to coordinate the first preventative maintenance visit on a piece of equipment. Though the project is complete, you shouldn’t assume your stakeholders know what to do or expect next.
4 – Share what your team learned from the project experience. Often, many useful insights come from unraveling all the things you didn’t know at the initiative’s outset. Did your procurement efforts reveal that only a single vendor still sells a particular item your stakeholders may need to replace or upgrade later? Were you unable to negotiate favorable shipping rates for supplies because the latest hazmat requirements limit the methods of transport for certain items? Your learnings could save stakeholders significant time, money, and frustration later, so share what you know as part of your post-project transition process.
PMAlliance, Inc uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project portfolio management.