ABSTRACT
To achieve timely and effective project completion the project manager should treat the necessary effort as a mini project which requires a level of planning and control consistent with the needs of any other major project. Once it becomes clear that the project has reached its natural or unnatural completion, the task of closing out the contract should be treated as a distinct project. The planning process begins with the definition of a specific set of closure objectives which will then be used to develop a closure work breakdown structure. The intellectual issues relate to the specific details which must be completed in the project closeout process. Contractual issues are related to the contract closeout process, and the organizational issues deal with the organization's needs imposed on the termination process. The emotional issues that affect the project team and the client can be further classified as either motivational or procedural.
