is your project not going well this will help you get it back on track

Project Audit Guideline


INTRODUCTION

There comes a time as a project manager that you will need to conduct a project audit when the project is not achieving the planned goals and objectives.

Even the best planned projects will encounter problems along the way. These hurdles however, do not mean that your project is doomed to failure. The key is to identify these challenges early and take the appropriate steps to get your project back on track.

A project audit can be conducted when you have just taken over a project from a project manager or during a project that is underway and you need to have an understanding of why the project is running into trouble.


INTRODUCTION

ObjectiveThe objective of the project audit is to evaluate:

• The way your projects are managed• How your project governance and

methodology meet the business requirements.

OutcomeThe project audit will provide :• A view of what goes well and what needs to be

improved.• An action plan to bring the project back on

track


INDICATORS OF A TROUBLED PROJECT

Category Indication

Documentation and process

• There is a lack of trust in the project process• Processes are informal and improvised• No formal documentation is in place

Cost and Schedule

• The initial cost does not manage the agreed scope baseline• The schedule for the project is being pushed out from the

original baseline

Stakeholders • Stakeholders management is not in place

Project Resources

• The project teams are not aligned with the required project deliverables

• There is not enough skills to perform the assigned roles and responsibilities

Risks • There is significant exposure to risks with large impact • Mitigation strategies are not working

Quality • There is no proper process in place to ensure quality is managed throughout the project process


ACTION PLAN

Step 1

• Define the audit charter

Step 2

• Outline the assessment plan

Step 3

• Conduct the audit

Step 4

• Present the report

Step 5

• Implement the approved plan


DEFINE THE AUDIT CHARTER

Once it has been agreed that a project audit should go ahead - a project

charter should be setup to provide the project manager with the authority

to move ahead with the audit and to ensure that there is enough budget to

cover the audit.

Identify stakeholders

State objectives

State audit milestones

Identify Risks

Define the scope

Approve the budget

• The inputs for the project charter should be agreed with the stakeholders

• The project charter should be kept as a project record


OUTLINE THE AUDIT PLAN

The plan should very clearly outline what tasks/activities will need to be

carried out to perform the audit. Once the tasks have been agreed the

allocation of the teams and costs can be aligned to allow the project plan

to be approved by the stakeholders

Finalise the tasks

Finalise the timeline

Assign the team

Confirm the costs

Review the plan

Finalise the plan

• During the course of the audit there will be updates to the project plan.• Each plan should be re-baselined against the first baseline to manage

and track all of the changes


CONDUCT THE AUDIT

The audit will provide an understanding of what needs to be focussed on to

bring the projects back to a successful state. To gather the correct

information for the audit a questionnaire should be sent out to the team.

Identify assessment areas

Develop the audit matrix

Define the questionnaire

Submit the questionnaire

Setup review meetings

Update the audit matrix

• One on one meetings with the team can help with completing the questionnaires

• Each team member could present to the forum their feedback on why projects are going wrong and how this could be improved this helps to build team morale during the audit


PRESENT THE REPORT

The report for the audit must be presented in a concise and clear manner

that allows for easy readying by both the stakeholders as well as the team.

The report should clearly show the findings from the audit and provide the

solutions to allow for successful project delivery

Finalise the Table of Contents

Send out first draft of report

Update report with feedback

Hold a walkthrough meeting

Finalise the report

Obtain stakeholder approval

• The walkthrough meeting is the right time to finalise any changes to your document to ensure approval and the ability to move forward to the implementation of the agreed project process..


IMPLEMENT THE APPROVED PLAN

The implementation of the approved plan must be conducted as a normal

project following the agreed process and governance. Training will be

required to introduce the amended process and governance

Confirm projects to be rolled out

Finalise the project roadmap

Provide training for the project rollout

Monitor the progress of the projects

Final review on projects

Finalise process and move into project office

• It is important to get buy-in from both the stakeholders and team

during the implementation of the new process. As you rollout the

process allow the team to feedback on what they are happy with and

what needs to be changed.

PROJECT AUDITPlanning and Implementation Guide


OUTLINE The following slides provide a suggested guideline for what the audit

outcome should be and questions to be raised. This can be altered in terms of the project audit that you are

conducting


IDENTITY THE AUDIT AREASThe assessment could cover the following areas: Projects in progress Governance and methodology Project Best Practice Technology and infrastructure Project Vendor Management Project Resource Management Project Metrics and Reports Project Communication Management Project Change Management Project Quality Management


PROJECTS IN PROGRESSObjective:

To measure what project plans are in place to manage the projects

Proposed Questions (these can be amended as required) How do you manage and track your projects? Are milestones (gates) easily identified? Does each task have an approved deliverable? Is each project task assigned the correct resources at the agreed

allocation? Has the project plan been approved and baselined? How do you track your resources and time allocations? How do you sign off on deliverables?


GOVERNANCE AND METHODOLOGYObjective

To measure the governance and methodologies used to manage and deploy your projects

Proposed Questions (these can be amended as required) How do you ensure that governance is applied to your projects? What documentation do you use for your projects and where are

they kept? What project folders are setup to store documentation? Do you have a shared site for all project documentation? Has the project methodology been approved by the key

stakeholders? What audits are performed on the projects in progress?


PROJECT BEST PRACTICEObjective:

To measure if your company uses best practices for the project management

Proposed Questions (these can be amended as required) Do you apply the principles of PMBOK for your project management

process? Do you use Prince2 in any of your processes? How do you align your software deliverables and what process are

they based on e.g. Waterfall, Agile, Scrum, Iterative, etc.? Are the processes integrated to work within your organisation?


TECHNOLOGY AND INFRASTRUCTUREObjective:

To ensure that the correct technology and infrastructure is in place to manage your project effectively

Proposed Questions (these can be amended as required) Does building the system in-house deliver strategic advantage to

the organization (i.e., would it give the company a competitive edge)?

Is it a maintenance project or a new initiative that requires significant work?

Are specific technical skills required for the project's completion? If so, do they exist in-house?

Does the requested product exist? If so, are well-established vendors available?

Could the organization experience any integration issues if a solution is purchased?

If customization is required, is the vendor willing to perform it?


VENDOR MANAGEMENTObjective:

To measure how the contracts and service level agreements are managed for the suppliers and vendors

Proposed Questions (these can be amended as required) How do you manage your relationships with your vendors? What process do you use for Request for Proposal? How do you notify vendors that they have been successful? What contracts are in place to manage the deliverables? How do you measure the deliverables from the vendors? What Service Level Agreements do you have in place to maintain

operations within your live environment? What outsourcing are you currently performing? How do you manage your contracted staff? What audits are in place to measure the performance of your

suppliers and contractors?


RESOURCE MANAGEMENTObjective:

To measure the project teams and how they are aligned to project deliverables

Proposed Questions (these can be amended as required) Does each resource have a defined job description? Does the project team understand their specific role and

responsibility within the project? Are there the correct skills for the projects to be delivered? Are there enough resources on board to deliver the projects? Is there an organogram showing how the company structure works?


METRICS AND REPORTSObjective:

To measure what reports and metrics are used to track projects within the life cycles and how these are presented to the stakeholders

Proposed Questions (these can be amended as required)

What metrics are used to measure success or failure within the projects

Tasks completed Slippage ratios (SPI Index) Cost slippage (CPI) Web Analytics MIS reports Financial reports Supplier review reports Where are the reports stored? Do you have a cloud management system to distribute reports to

your suppliers and contractors?


COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENTObjective

To measure if reports are timeously distributed using the correct information to the agreed team members

Proposed Questions (these can be amended as required) Do you use the cloud to store your documents and if so how is it

managed and controlled to ensure security of information? How is the weekly status presented to the forums? How do you manage issues and risks and reporting back on this? Do you use dashboard reports on projects and enhancements to

show progress? What regularly scheduled meetings do you have to report back on

projects ? How does the project team track and manage problems and issues? Who takes the minutes and where are they stored?


CHANGE MANAGEMENTObjective:To measure how all changes within project management are tracked and managed to ensure that there is a minimum impact to the agreed cost, scope and schedule baselines.

Proposed Questions (these can be amended as required) What process is currently in place to manage and control any

requested change? Is there an understanding of what the impact is? Who is responsible for raising the changes and authorising the

outcome of the required changes? How are these changes tracked back into the roadmap delivery

plan?


PROJECT IMPLEMENTATIONObjective

To ensure that the quality of the product is managed controlled and meets the correct standards before being deployed

Proposed Questions (these can be amended as required) What quality standards are in place for the deployment of projects

into the live environment? Are there project-specific instructions regarding the procedures,

naming conventions, supporting tools, equipment, standards and metrics to be applied by the project team to achieve quality objectives at each phase of the Project

How is the testing controlled and tracked before deploying the product?

Is there a roll back process in place?


Area Priority to correct

Projects in progress High Medium Low

Governance and Priority

Project Best Practice

Technology and Infrastructure

Project Vendor Management

Project Resource Management

Project Metrics and Reports

Project Communication Management

Project Change Management

Project Quality Management

IDENTIFY THE PRIORITY

Priority Amount

High

Medium

Low


PLAN THE IMPROVEMENT ROADMAPPhase P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10

Projects in Progress

Governance and methodology

Project Best Practice

Technology and infrastructure

Project Vendor Management

Project Resource Management

Project Metrics and Reports

Project Communication Management

Project Change Management

Project Quality Management


IMPLEMENTATION CHECKLIST

Checklist Verification

Charter agreed

Team Meetings Setup

Questionnaires completed

Questionnaires returned

Project Plan Agreed

Communication plan agreed

Team in Place

Status Meetings Setup

Cloud Storage and permission setup

Kick off date agreed


CLOSING SUMMARY

• When there is a common, simple approach for Project Management

and the correct tools are available, your project team will be

empowered to reach their goals, together and individually.

• A easy to use Project Management Methodology gives your business

a framework that makes it achievable for your product to move from

vision to action.

• It will also provide you with a competitive advantage to get your

product into the market on time within budget and meeting the

quality requirements each and every time.


CLOSING SUMMARY

• When there is a common, simple approach for Project Management and the correct tools

are available, your project team will be empowered to reach their goals, together and

individually.

• A easy to use Project Management Methodology gives your business a framework that

makes it achievable for your product to move from vision to action.

• It will also provide you with a competitive advantage to get your product into the market

on time within budget and meeting the quality requirements each and every time.

is your project not going well this will help you get it back on track

Leadership & Management