The Post-Mortem: How to Leverage the Closure Phase of a Project

The end of a project can bring on a host of feelings: relief, pride, exhaustion and more. Your team is likely looking forward to a break and period of recharging. While well-deserved, you have one final step to complete before you close the book on a project – the post-mortem/closure meeting. This piece of the project management lifecycle can be the key to continuous growth and working more efficiently in the future. A productive post-mortem meeting should be an integral part of any project, regardless of industry. Follow the steps listed below to hold a project closing meeting that will benefit your entire team. 

Plan for efficiency

Once the post-mortem is scheduled, send out a survey to the full team in advance that covers high-level feedback. Request insight on what they think went well and where their personal pain points were. This will help you craft an agenda for the meeting that hits the important areas, without needing to do a “brain dump” of information at the beginning. Aim to keep the meeting to an hour or less; you want a focused, productive session.

Take time to celebrate

Take a moment to recognize your team and their individual roles in the project’s success. Loop in the executive team where appropriate and sing the praises of even those small contributions that made a difference. Lead with the positive and make sure the team feels appreciated. This should be done before your closure meeting or at the start of it.

Focus on the quantitative

Review the metrics and objectives that were set at the beginning of the project. Were they met, exceeded or missed, and by how much? Numbers will often hold the most weight with members of your executive team; they’ll want to know first thing if goals were met. Pull out specific areas where goals were exceeded or missed, and dive in deeper on the logistical and resource factors that were at play.

Then move on to the qualitative

Now that you have a handle on the numbers, you’ll need to put them in context. Numbers, though valuable, rarely paint the full picture. Discuss how well the team collaborated and how challenges were solved. Was communication effective, and does everyone feel recognized? Does each team member feel they were able to contribute to the best of their abilities? While these questions don’t represent specific goals, they speak to a broader view of team cohesiveness and effectiveness.

Leave with action items

To conclude the meeting, lay out logical next steps that arise from your discussions. You’ll need to resource new training or tools, plan a team building event or finalize reports. There may be training or tools that need to be resourced, a team building event may be in order, or reports may need finalized. Assign tasks to each team member and set deadlines for each. Some action items will likely be tasks that lead into future projects. A good post-mortem is ultimately forward-looking, ending on an optimistic note.