The purpose of a project sign-off sheet (not to be confused with a sign-in sheet) is essential to formally close a project or acknowledge the delivery of a key deliverable. Learn how to use them in your projects in this guide.
After countless hours, dozens of resources, and hundreds of requests, you’ve finally wrapped up the project.
It's time to pop the bubbly and celebrate, right?
You must formally close the project before you start the wrap-up party (and the debrief). There are contractual obligations and liabilities. Unless you get sign-off from all stakeholders, you can’t say that the project is really over.
That’s where the project sign-off sheet comes into the picture.
This simple document formally signals the end of the project. Stakeholders use it to tell all involved parties that they’re satisfied with the project (and if they’re not, to formally register their complaint).
A sign-off sheet is an essential part of any project. Before you dive into debriefing, we’ll discuss what it is, when to use it, and how to make the most of it. We’ll also share a free project sign off template you can use in your own projects.
Easy: a sign-off sheet is a document signed by all stakeholders. It states:
All involved parties then sign the document. Their signatures formally (and, more importantly, legally) close the project.
Any reservations stakeholders may have can be registered here, but by signing it, they agree that the project team’s liabilities are officially over.
You will have countless variations based on your organization’s specific legal needs and contractual obligations.
A complex project sign-off sheet can be dozens or even hundreds of pages long. Government contracts, for instance, usually have “sign-off books” rather than sheets.
Regardless of the scope or scale of the sign-off sheet, the core concept remains the same: sign the sheet, and the project can be officially closed.
A project sign-off sheet is typically used for completed projects, but what if you’re breaking the project down into multiple deliverables?
This common practice in large projects can be divided into distinct stages. Each stage might end with a deliverable.
In such cases, it’s common to have a deliverable sign-off sheet. This is exactly like the project sheet, except it focuses on one or more deliverables.
By signing this sheet, all involved parties indicate their satisfaction with the deliverable(s). Their signatures are a green signal to proceed with the remaining deliverables.
Once all the deliverables in the project have been completed, the stakeholders can sign the project sign-off sheet to formally close the project.
It’s a better practice to send deliverable sign-off sheets as you wrap up major deliverables. Three reasons why:
Think of this as a way to build trust and create accountability. If all deliverables are signed off by their deadlines, clients will have a much easier time trusting your capabilities.
Project sign-off is one of the many activities you’ll do at the end of a project. This is the phase where you’ve handed over all deliverables and are about to dismiss the project team.
The typical steps in this phase include:
The final step is, of course, essential.
All the steps outlined above are important, but project sign-off is the only one that’s legally necessary. It’s good to conduct a post-mortem or collect feedback, but you’re not going to be held liable for anything if you don’t do it.
However, not signing the project sign-off sheet can open up a Pandora's box of issues in the future. What if the mobile app you delivered crashes after an iOS update 6 months later? If the project was never formally closed, couldn’t you be held liable for fixing the issue?
This is why getting a sign-off should be the first step as you wind down the project. You should be able to point to this document in case a dispute arises in the future.
Do keep in mind that a signature on a sign-off sheet isn’t legally watertight. You might still be held liable for issues based on your original contract. Always consult a lawyer before developing your contracts and documentation.
The short answer is “all involved parties,” but that’s not particularly helpful.
The longer answer is:
While getting sign-off from internal stakeholders is optional (at least in the legal sense of the word), getting the all-clear from stakeholders and sponsors is vital.
You need to get sign-off from sponsors in order to release any remaining payment. The sign-off also means you can release your resources and, if the initiating agreement includes it, hand over any unused materials/resources back to the sponsor.
Apart from the project sponsors, you’ll also need the approval of all stakeholders on the client’s side. Some stakeholders might have zero reservations. Others, however, might register their reservations.
This brings us to one of the most important parts of any project sign-off sheet.
Imagine that you’re a civil engineer working on a project to build a bridge. Throughout the project’s life cycle, you’ve seen lapses in quality control. You’ve tried to rein things in, but the budget and deadline demands meant that all issues were never 100% resolved.
As the project draws to a close, how do you officially register your reservations?
You guessed it: through the project sign-off sheet.
Every sign-off sheet has a section for adding “comments.” While this is strictly optional, stakeholders often use it to formally express their reservations.
Of course, the sign-off stage isn’t the time to resolve issues - that should have been tackled months ago. However, it does give stakeholders a platform to document their complaints.
Not only is this useful for record keeping, but it can also protect stakeholders in case of any future problems. If the bridge collapses, investigators will have the engineer’s sign-off complaints as a record of risks associated with the project.
Remember that the sign-off is not a place to register issues for the first time. Instead, it’s a place to document ongoing, unresolved problems. If a stakeholder brings up an issue for the first time in the sign-off, it indicates poor communication. You can certainly contest this complaint if you feel it’s unfair and should have been brought up earlier.
The project sign-off sheet isn’t particularly complicated as a document. It has a few fields and doesn’t need a lot of data.
We’ll share templates that you can use in your own projects. But if you want to build your own or understand how sign-off sheets work, read on.
Although there are plenty of variations, most sign-off sheets have the following elements at least:
That’s the basic structure, but it’s not the only way to do things.
One common variation, especially for larger projects, is to list each major deliverable and comments associated with it separately. This sample sign-off sheet from the US Department of Transportation, for instance, lists delivered documents along with stakeholder comments for them:
What about deliverable sign-off sheets?
In such cases, include the project identifiers as you normally would (project name, manager, ID, etc.). But after that, include the following:
Representatives often approve deliverables on behalf of the sponsor, so it’s a good idea to include an “Approving Representative” field as well.
Our sign-off sheet template provides a much better idea of this structure. Click the link below to download a copy.
Before we leave, there are a few tips you should follow when creating sign-off sheets:
A client bringing up an important issue in the sign-off stage indicates poor communication leading up to project delivery. Of course, sometimes the blame lies on stakeholders themselves for not raising issues, but if you’ve been communicating regularly, you’ll very rarely have this problem.
Avoid this problem by creating a better communication plan. In particular, address key issues early and often. Reservations, if any, should be resolved by the sign-off stage. At the very least, they shouldn’t surprise you.
Imagine this scenario: Stakeholder A signs off on the requirements documents at the start of the project. Midway through, she departs the company, and Stakeholder B enters her place. Stakeholder B is incredibly busy and doesn’t manage to read the requirements carefully enough.
Consequently, at the sign-off time, this new stakeholder doesn’t fully understand what’s to be done and expresses her reservations.
This is a common situation when dealing with long projects and large companies. Stakeholders come and go, and not all of them have the same understanding of the requirements for each deliverable or the project as a whole. When it comes time to sign off, they’re unsure what to expect.
Avoid this problem by making sure stakeholders understand the requirements. If someone new comes in, brief them on the requirements and, if possible, get them to sign off again. This will ensure that they’re not surprised at delivery time.
Delays in signing off on deliverables are common across projects and stakeholders. This creates unnecessary delays as project teams wait for the go-ahead before moving on to other deliverables.
Avoid this issue by adopting an aggressive follow-up schedule. Stay in regular touch with stakeholders and, if necessary, escalate the issue to a higher authority. Since sponsors are often heavily invested in the project’s success, talking to them about delays is also a good idea - but only the delay is particularly damaging.
Project sign-off sheets are an important part of the project closing process. By getting formal sign-off, you create a sense of accountability, improve trust, and protect yourself from liabilities. A stakeholder signature on this sheet can be seen as the green signal to disband the project team and reallocate your resources.
Use the project sign-off template we’ve shared to use project sign-off sheets for your projects.
For more such templates, try using Workamajig to manage your agency process.
