InfoTown™
Sam's journey · On the job (delivery) · Lesson 10

It's all on the drive

Before you start

In the story

We kept it safe until someone tidied up. The defect claim arrived after.

Back to the story

The right way

All the way through

Lessons are captured at every milestone, and the close-out meeting looks for causes, not culprits.

Handover

Sam runs our close-out checklist: what we keep, what gets deleted, and who approves it. Our record goes to our archive with an index and a keep-until date that covers every liability period.

In useIn use: Two years later…
Two years later

The inspection records, found in five minutes. And the lessons are in the next bid.

Left open300 live projects, leavers logged in, and the records deleted before the claim.
Closed properlyArchived, indexed, kept long enough, and found in five minutes.
Think like Sam

A job isn't closed until its information is. What must be kept, where, and until when? Who still has access? If you can't answer all three, it isn't closed.

The finale

Audit day

The assessor is in the building. Eighteen stories' worth of evidence either exists, or it doesn't.
The right way, explained

The right way, explained

When a building is finished, the town files its records in the archive and takes the keys back. Leave the door open and the keys out, and either anyone wanders in or someone clears it out by mistake.

If you're the project manager

If you're the project manager

Put close-out in the programme, with an owner, before the team starts leaving. The last week of a job is too late.

In the town See it in the town: the job's over. What do you keep, and who still has a key?

Sam's view: the Records Office's back room. Keep-until dates on every shelf, and the keys hung back on the hook.

The back room of the Records Office: shelves of project boxes with keep-until dates, a board of returned keys, and a lessons log with owners.THE RECORDS OFFICE'S BACK ROOMTHE GLASSHOUSE · AS-BUILTkeep until: the client has it for lifeINSPECTION RECORDSkeep until: as long as the contract saysDEFECTS AND CLAIMSkeep until: no claim can still arriveWORKING FILESclosed: not keptKEYS RETURNEDleavers and firms: access removedLESSONS LOG1 · Name the master CDE in week one2 · Review a week before, not the night3 · Check the team on day oneowner and date on each123
  1. 1 What has to be kept, kept for as long as it might be needed, with a keep-until date on every shelf. Working files are closed, not kept "just in case".
  2. 2 Every key handed back: nobody who has left the job can still get in.
  3. 3 The lessons, each with an owner, carried into the next bid rather than left in a folder.

This is Project Close-out!

Archived, kept long enough, access removed, and lessons passed on.

For the audit What the auditor will ask
  • Show me how this project was closed: what was archived, where, until when, and who signed it off.
  • Who can still access it?
For the audit What good evidence looks like
  • A signed close-out checklist.
  • An archive with an index and keep-until dates.
  • Access removed.
  • A lessons log with owners, and proof it fed the next bid.
From the standard
ISO 19650 Close-out

At the end of the job, ISO 19650 expects the client to archive the project information model, and lessons learned to be captured for future projects. Each firm keeps its own record too: how long is set by your contract, the law where you work and your own retention policy.

Close-outIn plain words
ArchiveThe record that matters, indexed and findable
Keep untilLong enough to cover defects and liability periods
Close and removeWorking areas closed, access removed
LessonsCaptured with owners, and used on the next job

Based on the ISO 19650 series: the ideas come from the standard; the plain-English wording, examples and advice are InfoTown's. ISO 19650 is © ISO and BSI. You'll hear the same language across the industry. Read more for free in the Information Management Initiative (IMI) Framework guidance from BSI and nima. For the full requirements, use the standard itself.