skills/project-closeout/references/closeout-and-termination.md

# Closeout and early termination

## Readiness record

Use a proportionate record: obligation or deliverable, contractual or operational basis, status, evidence, receiving owner, outstanding issue, closure consequence, and proposed resolution. Distinguish criteria already satisfied from actions needed to satisfy them. Avoid circular requirements such as releasing a critical team before the handover needed to release it.

Prepare an acceptance record that identifies the version and scope accepted, exceptions, resolution owners, support responsibilities, and the authorized acceptor. Do not substitute generic acceptance language for the agreement or imply a client's signature exists.

## Handover package

Choose artifacts by the delivered work: final deliverables and editable sources, assumptions and source trail, operating instructions, maintenance/update process, exception handling, support and escalation, access/ownership, and unresolved items. Check that intended recipients can find and use them. Preserve relevant licensing and data restrictions.

For critical knowledge, a walkthrough followed by a recipient completing a representative task can establish more than attendance. Match verification to risk. Record what was demonstrated and where support is still required.

## Early termination or suspension

Establish the cause and applicable termination or suspension terms from the evidence. Provide an accurate account of delivered value, incomplete work, obligations, risks, and options. Align communications without rewriting facts or concealing delivery failure.

Package usable completed work and mark its limitations. Determine what can be transferred under the contract. Reconcile billing, resource release, subcontractors, access, and continuity with authorized owners. Do not promise free remediation, compromise fees, release restricted deliverables, or terminate an agreement merely because a template proposes it.

For a pause, identify restart conditions, holding costs, support ownership, evidence that will become stale, and the decision date. For termination, identify the remaining contractual and operating responsibilities. Follow the firm's disengagement process when the client requests misleading work or other circumstances require withdrawal; drafting a recommendation is separate from exercising termination authority.

## Lessons and people

Use a retrospective format that elicits observed outcomes, what contributed, what was tried, and what should change. Preserve dissent or uncertainty instead of forcing one explanation. Capture a specific action, owner by role, and where the lesson will be reused.

Provide individual performance feedback only when requested and supported by relevant evidence. Do not turn closeout of an engagement into an unsolicited employee assessment. Distinguish observed behavior from interpretation and follow the applicable confidentiality and review process.