A multi-phase project over several years: closing each phase as its own job
The second phase begins with a different superintendent and several new trades. Everyone has access to the first phase’s folder, but nobody can explain which assumptions still apply. A long project has preserved files without preserving a usable handover.
Treat each phase of a multi-year project as a defined delivery period with its own baseline, budget, closeout and lessons, while maintaining a project-level record of decisions and interfaces that continue across phases. Review the remaining plan with the owner at each transition and record changed assumptions explicitly. Preserve earlier baselines rather than rewriting the history. Long duration requires continuity in the record as people, prices and project conditions change.
Close a phase and prepare the next deliberately
- Define the phase boundaries. State the scope, completion conditions and interfaces carried forward. Separate a phase’s physical handover from remaining commercial or technical actions so an open item cannot disappear behind a phase-complete label.
- Preserve the phase baseline and result. Keep the dated starting scope, schedule and budget with the eventual outcome. Explain approved changes and unresolved matters using references the next team can follow.
- Maintain the continuing project record. Index decisions, authority contacts, design assumptions and cross-phase obligations in a durable location. Assign a maintainer and ensure the company’s retention and backup arrangements cover staff transitions.
- Review remaining assumptions with the right people. Recheck supplier forecasts, staffing, access and future interfaces before planning the next phase. Identify commercial or technical changes requiring formal review rather than rolling old allowances forward automatically.
- Agree a new phase reference through the project controls. Show how the proposed dates and budget relate to the original project position and intervening changes. Record the appropriate approval and keep earlier references available.
- Handover the lessons as usable inputs. Ask the incoming team which first-phase findings affect their work. Translate those findings into checked assumptions or actions with owners, instead of sending a general lessons document nobody applies.
Common mistakes
- Re-baselining the remaining programme without retaining the prior comparison.
- Closing a phase while leaving cross-phase duties without receiving owners.
- Assuming an old price or staffing arrangement remains current years later.
Action list
At every phase transition
- Define what is closed and what continues.
- Preserve the phase’s original reference and outcome.
- Recheck remaining assumptions.
- Approve the next reference through proper controls.
- Transfer open interfaces and applicable lessons to named people.
Check your understanding
The next phase uses a revised schedule. Should the original project baseline be removed to avoid confusion?
