{"id":4269,"date":"2012-12-11T12:10:52","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T18:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/?p=4269"},"modified":"2022-08-03T13:39:46","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T18:39:46","slug":"whats-done-is-done-not-just-complete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/whats-done-is-done-not-just-complete\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Done is Done, Not Just Complete"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-4288 size-thumbnail\" title=\"Checkered Flag\" src=\"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/done-flag_compressed-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Checkered Flag\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\">Last month, I was driving through a major highway construction project when my passenger commented how excited she was because she\u2019d heard that the project was nearing completion and would be finished before year-end.&nbsp; I took a quick gander at the site and responded that I was sure whatever source she\u2019d heard that from must have said the end of <em>next<\/em> year, not this year, because this project was clearly far from over.<\/p>\n<p>But sure enough, our newspaper arrived today with the feature story about that highway construction project with a big COMPLETE stamped across a picture of the intersection.&nbsp; The text of the article described the project as having been \u201csubstantially completed.\u201d Substantially complete?<\/p>\n<p>Sure, the lanes are all open and traffic is moving without the stops we used to have to endure, but I drove through it again a couple of days ago and I can tell you the intersection is a mess.&nbsp; Piles of dirt are everywhere, the landscaping looks forgotten, and there are those blasted orange barrels strewn everywhere on the shoulders of the road and in the ditches.<\/p>\n<p>Substantially completed, indeed!&nbsp; Not to be confused with <em>done<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>What does it mean to say that the work is complete or that the project is done?&nbsp; That depends on what was defined, of course, at the beginning.&nbsp; Project definition necessarily includes a definition of done.&nbsp; That is, the picture of project closure needs to be painted at the beginning and agreed upon by all stakeholders.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s easy in the frenzied project world most of us live in to remember that closing a project includes a number of things, only one of which is actually completing the work.&nbsp; We are so happy to be finished with the work that we may forget about what else needs to occur to actually consider it done in order to close the project.&nbsp; How many of the things below do you have on your project closure checklist?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Review of work completed \u2013 Those stakeholders defined in the plan need to review the work that\u2019s been done.&nbsp; Does it meet their expectations?<\/li>\n<li>Get signature(s) of approval \u2013 Get signatures (again, as defined in the plan) to formally acknowledge the completed work and acceptance of deliverables.<\/li>\n<li>Conduct and document lessons learned.<\/li>\n<li>Clear up or address any outstanding issues.<\/li>\n<li>If working with vendors, close out procurements.<\/li>\n<li>Update and file project files and records \u2013 Pull the project information, records, lessons learned, together and put them on the project historical records \u201cshelf,\u201d electronic or otherwise.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It\u2019s a checklist you\u2019ve probably seen many times, yet when was the last time you got to the end of a project and just couldn\u2019t figure out how to get it closed\u2026because you weren\u2019t sure if it was?&nbsp; Or, do you have projects in your environment that just never seem to end?&nbsp; Maybe it\u2019s simply difficult to get consensus as to whether we are finished or not?<\/p>\n<p>The question is often asked of sponsors and other key stakeholders, \u201cWhat is your definition of success?\u201d&nbsp; Another good question to clarify project definition could be \u201cWhen I come to tell you the project is complete, what will that mean to you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The news reporter writing the article about the highway department surely made lots of stakeholders happy with the announcement that the project was COMPLETE.&nbsp; Most people probably don\u2019t care about the landscaping and orange barrels littering the site.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, the traffic moves through the intersection like water moving through the Amazon River, and that\u2019s no small thing.&nbsp; So I\u2019ll buy that it\u2019s substantially complete.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s just a good thing the stamp across the picture didn\u2019t read DONE, because it is certainly far from that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month, I was driving through a major highway construction project when my passenger commented how excited she was because she\u2019d heard that the project was nearing completion and would be finished before year-end.&nbsp; I took a quick gander at the site and responded that I was sure whatever source she\u2019d heard that from must [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":10592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,76,211,15],"tags":[30,54,22],"coauthors":[140],"class_list":["post-4269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communicating","category-estimating-and-planning-project-management","category-project-management","category-stakeholders","tag-eliciting-requirements","tag-planning-and-estimating","tag-project-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4269"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10651,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4269\/revisions\/10651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4269"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}