Don't Let Future Projects Repeat the Same Mistakes

IPA’s Closeout Analysis aims to asses the performance of a completed project against both the planned performance and the industry averages. The performance of a project is evaluated by examining if the project was completed as planned and met the business needs.

A Closeout Analysis, which can be done on any project, is performed after the project has been started up, when most of the project costs are able to be forecasted, but prior to the disbanding of the project team.

In addition to the Closeout Analysis, a Team Functionality Assessment can also be performed.

Scope

The Closeout Analysis includes a comparison of the project’s practices and the planned and actual outcomes. The project’s actual outcomes are also compared against industry average results for similar projects. It also compares the project’s practices against industry Best Practices for similar projects.

Benefits

The Closeout Analysis benefits project teams and project sponsors as it:

• Allows teams to look back at a project after it has been completed to identify both the positive and negative actions and gain an understanding of how these actions influenced the project outcomes
• Provides a set of industry Best Practices that can be used to improve future performance
• Provides a set of lessons learned and/or recommendations based on the project’s practices and outcomes and industry Best Practices that can be applied to future projects
• Provides a better understanding of the probable root causes for the good or poor performance of this project to allow both the project team members and the company as a whole to avoid the same mistakes on other projects

Process

The data will be gathered in a face-to-face interview with the key project team members over a 1-day interview, including the project manager, lead process and design engineers, cost estimator, project control lead, scheduling lead, construction manager, and maintenance and operations representatives (if still available). Not all team members will be needed for the entire interview; however, more value can be gained by having all key members present for at least a few hours.

As with our other analyses, IPA uses a workbook to gather the necessary data for the evaluation. If a Prospective Analysis has already been performed, the workbook will be pre-filled with the responses from the previous evaluation. However, if this is a first-look Closeout Analysis, the team will need to complete the workbook.  

Deliverables

A written report detailing the results of the project, the assessment of the project outcomes, the comparisons with both the industry averages and the planned outcomes, and the lessons learned based on the experiences from this project and recommendations based on industry Best Practices that can be used on future projects will be issued. The report is developed using both detailed text and graphics. IPA will also deliver a separate briefing to the project team (or management) if requested.