Wrapping Up a Project Successfully
After weeks of writing, coding, designing, etc., you come, at last to the finish line. Finally you can set aside your keyboard and take a well earned break! Your project is finished.
But wait! The project may be done, but your work is far from over. In fact, this is one of the most critical parts of the whole document creation process: project delivery.
If you hand off your project in an effective manner, you can highlight your skills as a worker and position yourself for advancement. But fumbling the delivery can mean all your hard work goes unnoticed or opens the door for some unscrupulous co-worker to steal the credit.
This guide is designed to help you think through how to effectively finish off a project.
Project Delivery Guidelines
- A delivery letter (which might be called a cover letter since it becomes the cover or first page for the project) is a vital document which serves multiple functions
- ALWAYS write a delivery letter to hand off a project
- No one may require you to write this type of letter (other than a certain technical writing teacher!), but only a fool would miss this chance to highlight the strengths of their work and their time and effort
- This letter should remind your boss/supervisor/client of the following:
- the project goal
- changes/modifications to original project goals
- the history of work on the project
- problems encountered while doing the project, but which were dealt with successfully
- all team contributions but emphasizing your contributions as team leader/key team player
- highlights for the project
- overall success for the project
- future steps to be taken
- distributing the project
- future revisions
- request for future assignments
- The contents of this letter are similar to the work we did on the progress report, except here the focus should be on completion and success not work in progress
- This letter needs to show you off; it should highlight the time and effort and quality work you point into the project
- This letter’s main purpose is to show that you are a highly effective worker
- As usually (and sadly) doing a good job is never as important as creating the image that you did a good job
- No matter what problems, difficulties, or even outright failures you had with the project, write a letter that uses a positive tone; bosses don’t want to hear about failures; they want to hear about how smart, effective employees overcome problems in order to be successful
- Deliver your letter and project in person; face time always counts for making a good impression; if you are meeting with anyone important, dress up for the meeting; and make sure they get your delivery letter to help them recall meeting you
- If you hand off your project to a supervisor without a delivery letter and the supervisor takes the project to someone else, your name can easily get left out of the conversation; if the letter highlights the project and can be read quickly (i.e. is well formatted), it has a good chance of remaining with the project, getting forwarded, etc.; and then your name remains associated with this work