Project closure

Closure is important, especially in project management. Even after you’ve achieved your final milestone, you still need to make sure your work is complete, share results, and decide on next steps. After reaching your final milestone, it’s still important to complete all tasks, share your results, and plan next steps. It’s easy to skip these steps when celebrating a successful project. But with a project closure template, your team can tie up loose ends without missing a beat.

What is a project closure template? 

A project closure template is a reusable, pre-defined checklist that helps teams finalize outstanding tasks and complete initiatives efficiently. It guides teams in evaluating project success, verifying final deliverables, and recording outcomes before work officially concludes. By using the same template across projects, teams don’t need to rebuild their project closure processes.

Benefits of digital project closure templates 

A digital project closure template helps teams wrap up work in an organized, visible way, rather than scrambling at the closeout of an initiative. Instead of relying on spreadsheets or siloed documents, teams can track remaining tasks, approvals, and stakeholder feedback within the same Asana project. Project closure checklist templates make it easier to see what’s complete, what still needs attention, and who owns each final step.

With Asana’s digital project closure templates, you can:

• Ensure teams follow a consistent closure process to prevent missing important items.

• Monitor final tasks, approvals, and milestones as the final project concludes.

• Share progress with stakeholders without requiring additional project reports or status updates.

• Visualize closeout with dashboards, such as Gantt charts or Kanban boards.

• Store key documents, like project charters or project overviews, within tasks for easy reference.

• Facilitate project handovers and knowledge transfers upon project completion.

What to include in your project closure template

A well-designed project closure template enables teams to conclude work systematically, document outcomes, and prepare for future initiatives. It should guide the review of planned versus actual results, capture key decisions, and ensure the project ends with a shared understanding.

Your project closure template should include:

• Project name: A clear identifier to ensure closure records are easy to reference, especially for future project tracking.

• Project plan review: A summary comparing the original project plan to actual delivery, noting any changes from the baseline.

• Budget summary: A final budget comparison of planned and actual spending, highlighting any significant variances.

• Project outcomes: A brief summary of results, goals achieved, and overall value delivered.

• Sign-offs: A section to record final approvals from project owners and key stakeholders.

• Post-mortem notes: Reflections on successes, challenges, and lessons learned to apply in similar projects.

• Handoffs: Follow-up project deliverables and any remaining action items you need to assign after your project is complete.

By capturing these elements in a project closure report, teams preserve project context and position themselves for more efficient execution in future projects.

Integrated features

• Timeline View. View tasks on a Gantt-style timeline with start and end dates, as well as dependencies, to help teams identify conflicts early and maintain project schedules.

• Approvals. Request explicit approve, reject, or revision decisions on deliverables, so owners know exactly what to do next.

• Milestones. Define key checkpoints to track progress toward goals and keep teams and stakeholders aligned on timelines. 

• Custom fields. Tag and filter work by priority, status, or other criteria, enabling teams to organize tasks and focus on critical items.

Recommended apps

• Google Workplace. Attach Drive files to tasks using the integrated file picker.

• Salesforce. Connect sales, service, and delivery teams by creating trackable tasks and sharing information across systems.

• Hubspot. Automatically trigger tasks based on CRM activity to ensure seamless handoffs when deals or tickets close.

• Jira. Connect business and technical work by creating and tracking Jira issues directly from Asana.

FAQs about using project closure templates