| Course | GM594 Project Closing, Ethics, and Professional Responsibilities |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 6 |
| Paper type | Seminar reflection |
| Length | About 820 words, 5 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MS in Management |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GM594 Unit 6
Authority That Expires With the Team: A Unit 6 Seminar Reflection on How Projects End Badly
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GM594: Project Closing, Ethics, and Professional Responsibilities
Unit 6 Seminar Reflection
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The classmates' cases and the writer's emergency communications district are composite; the sources cited are real.
What I Believed Going In
In my notes before the session I wrote: "Endings go wrong because teams are exhausted. By the last month everyone wants to move on, and details slip." I expected the seminar to confirm that closing is mainly a problem of energy and attention.
Three Endings
Lauren described a hotel renovation. The general manager accepted the renovated guest floors with a long punch list attached, and a week later was transferred to another property. The new general manager had not signed anything and had no relationship with the contractor. Half the punch list was never completed, because no one with authority over the contract was there to insist.
Kevin described a county sheriff's office that bought body cameras and a cloud storage contract. The project closed when the cameras were deployed. Nobody was named as the owner of the storage contract, which renewed automatically two years later at three times its original price, because the first-year rate had been a discount. By the time finance noticed, the renewal was binding.
Ana described a university that moved to a new learning management system and deleted the old system's archived courses at the end of the project. Records retention rules required some of those courses to be kept for several years, and no one had checked, because the records officer was never part of the project team.
The Common Thread
None of these failures came from a tired team. In each one, a decision needed authority that ended when the project did. The hotel's punch list needed someone who had accepted the work. The storage contract needed an owner after deployment. The records decision needed someone who held retention authority, and that person was never on the team. The seminar's phrase for it was authority that expires with the team.
The endings went wrong not because people were tired but because the only people with authority to finish them had already left the project.
The Project Management Institute describes closing as including the transfer of ownership of deliverables and the formal handover of any ongoing obligations (Project Management Institute, 2021). Read that way, each case was a missing transfer. Terry Williams found that knowledge from projects is often lost because the people who hold it move on before anyone captures it (Williams, 2008). The same is true of authority.
Why the Teams Did Not See It
What struck me most is that every team in the three cases probably felt it had closed well. The hotel's team delivered floors on time. The sheriff's office deployed every camera. The university's team migrated every active course. By the measures each team was watching, the project was finished. The obligations that failed sat outside those measures: a punch list after acceptance, a contract after deployment, a retention rule after migration. A closing checklist that asks only whether the deliverables are done will miss them, because the missing piece is not a deliverable but a person with the right to act after the team has gone. The question a closing should ask is not "is everything finished?" but "for everything that continues, who now has the authority to decide?"
Where My First Belief Still Holds
Fatigue is real. In the last month of our backup power project I was less careful than in the first. But fatigue explains why details slip, not why decisions are left with no one able to make them. A rested team can still hand over a system without an owner.
My Own Ending
This made me look at our backup power project with some alarm. The state 911 grant's final report must be signed by the project manager of record, and the grant agreement names me. My role on the project ends this month, when I move to the district's radio replacement project. The final report is due within 30 days of completion, and it must state when the system became fully operational, a question on which the executive director and I may not agree. If the report is signed after my role ends, it will be signed by someone without the knowledge or the authority the grant expects.
Harold Kerzner argues that closure should include a formal release of the project manager only after every obligation has an owner (Kerzner, 2022). I will ask the executive director to keep me as project manager of record until the grant report is filed, and to name in writing who owns the warranty dispute and the fuel delivery agreement after I leave. Those are the decisions that could expire with me.
References
Kerzner, H. (2022). Project management: A systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling (13th ed.). Wiley.
Project Management Institute. (2021). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (7th ed.).
Williams, T. (2008). How do organizations learn lessons from projects, and do they? IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 55(2), 248-266. https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2007.912920
Reading the GM 594 Unit 6 instructions
GM594 Unit 6 wants your own account of what a seminar on project endings did to the view you brought into it. Quote or state the belief you held before the session. Summarize the cases classmates brought, each by what failed after the project ended. Then name the common thread the discussion reached, and test your first belief against it. Use research on closing and project learning to explain the thread. Ask why the teams involved did not see the problem, and what question a closing should ask that theirs did not. Say what part of your first belief still holds. Then apply the thread to a project of your own that is ending now, naming the specific obligation at risk and the action you will take. Two or three pages in your own voice is typical, with APA 7 citations for the readings.
How this GM594 Unit 6 example is built
The reflection quotes the writer's pre-session note that endings fail because teams are exhausted. Lauren's hotel punch list, Kevin's sheriff's office storage renewal and Ana's university course deletion follow. The common thread, authority that expires with the team, is stated in the highlighted sentence and linked to the PMBOK guide on transferring ownership and to Williams on knowledge leaving with people. A section argues that each team felt it had closed well by the measures it watched, and proposes asking who now has authority to decide for everything that continues. Fatigue is kept as an explanation for slips, not missing owners. The writer then applies the thread to her own grant report, which names her as project manager of record in the month she moves to the radio project, and, citing Kerzner, asks to stay on until it is filed and to name owners for the warranty dispute and fuel agreement.
GM594 Unit 6 rubric: what earns full points
GM594 rubric points for this reflection go to a stated first belief, cases summarized by what failed after the end, a common thread and a concrete application. Instructors look for the writer's original view quoted or stated plainly. Each case should be reduced to the obligation that failed. Naming a thread, and testing the first belief against it, shows analysis rather than summary. Explaining why the teams missed the problem shows insight. Keeping part of the original belief where evidence supports it shows judgment. The application should name a specific obligation on the writer's own project and an action with a person and a date. The reference list in APA 7 joins PMI's closing guidance, Williams's study of project learning and Kerzner's text on releasing a project manager.
Common GM594 Unit 6 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Many GM594 Unit 6 reflections summarize each classmate's story without finding what the stories share. Others conclude that closing needs more attention, which changes nothing. A common gap is the writer's own project: the strongest reflections find the same pattern in work that is ending now. Some writers drop their first belief entirely, even where part of it was right. State your starting belief, reduce each case to what failed after the end, name the thread, explain why teams missed it, keep what still holds of your first view and apply the thread to a specific obligation on your own project.
Get a GM594 Unit 6 example written to your instructions
Seminar reflections depend on the room, so list the Unit 6 cases people brought, or request composites, and say whether the piece should land on your own project. A first-person arc runs from the belief you started with to one concrete change. The first custom sample is free, returned within 24-48h. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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GM594 Unit 6 questions, answered
Should classmates be named in the reflection?
First names at most, and only if your section's norms allow it; many writers use a description instead, such as a classmate from hospitality. The sample describes each contributor by sector. What matters is attributing ideas fairly, so a reader can tell which points came from the discussion and which are the writer's own synthesis.
What if the seminar had no clear conclusion?
Then the reflection supplies one and says so. The sample's finding about expiring authority emerged from the discussion, but a writer may need to name a thread the session circled without stating. Owning that synthesis, and testing it against one counterexample, reads as stronger than reporting that the group shared many interesting perspectives.
Where can I find a free GM594 Unit 6 sample paper?
This page carries a full GM594 Unit 6 seminar reflection on three failed project endings and the authority that expires with a team, applied to a 911 district's grant report, with APA 7 references.
What does authority that expires with the team mean?
Some obligations continue after a project ends, such as a punch list, a contract renewal or a records decision. If the only people with authority to handle them leave with the project, the obligations fail even though the deliverables were finished.
How does the writer apply the idea to her own project?
The grant's final report must be signed by the project manager of record, who is the writer, in the month she moves to another project. She asks to remain on record until the report is filed and to name owners for the warranty dispute and fuel agreement.