What information do you keep about a project once it has been completed? [closed]

Question

Once a project reaches completion, which information do you keep/store for your records? Do you only keep a record of lessons learned, or do you also keep other project-specific information?

Answer 1

• All metrics of estimation, and actuals
• A Complete traceable matrix from requirement document (blueprint) to User Acceptance Testing
• All official, approved documentation, and contract with vendors
• Lessons learned
• Initial budget, and final cost

I cannot think of anything, my last closing process was in April last year.

Answer 2

We keep everything. Initial business requirements, functional scope documents, technical design documents, schedules, emails,... everything. Each project in our company has its own sharepoint site where this stuff is stored so it's easy to find later. You never know what piece of information is going to be useful when maintaining a system later, or if at some point down the line you just want to know "How did we do this on the last project?"

Answer 3

Most documentation is probably not going to take up most space, so just store it on a file server, in the cloud, or in an archive. There may be legal reasons for maintaining the documentation, so saving it will ensure you're covered.

Answer 4

Depends on why you are keeping records. If you do work in a regulated environment e.g. financial services, defense contractor, pharmaceuticals industry, your compliance department will determine what needs to be kept and what shouldn't be kept.

If you are keeping records to improve performance over time, keep the information related to the metrics you want to improve e.g. estimated vs actual time, change requests, lessons learned.

Another category of items to keep is the history of the work product produced as part of the project, e.g. the history of a brochure, previous designs for a website, etc.