1

Request Audit

• The auditor informs the project manager that he (or she) would like to perform an audit on the project.
• The auditor will indicate whether the audit will cover the project process definition or the project plan and which specific parts of the process or plan the auditor would like to assess.
• In the same way that iterative development makes sense because it makes the batch sizes of development work in progress small, it makes sense to hold smaller audits more often rather a few very large audits.
• Smaller audits, more often, make less impact on the project team, and should not affect productivity. A large audit less often is likely to involve far more team members, a greater amount of work will be affected, and significant drops in productivity may result. Project flow will be affected and the schedule may be impacted. With audits, like most other aspects of software engineering, small batches are better. Efficiency of the audit process or the transaction cost of organizing an audit should be secondary to the overall productivity of the project and the organization.

2

Schedule Audit

• Once an audit has been requested, a date should be agreed upon and appropriate stakeholders and project team members invited.

3

Gather Audit Work Products

• The work products needed to successfully execute the requested audit should be identified and collected.

4

Review Work Products

• Conduct the audit by reviewing the work products with relevant team members.

5

Record Observations

• Record data about deviation or variation from process definition or plan. Record any additional anecdotal or objective data which explains the reason or root cause of the deviation. Determine whether the deviation results from a special cause event or as part of the common cause variance within the project system.

6

Compile Audit Report

• Compile the data recorded into an audit report

7

Make Improvement Suggestions

• Optional
• Based on any root cause analysis and special or common cause assessment of variation from process or plan, make appropriate improvement suggestions which will reduce variation in the future.

A document summarizing the findings of the audit.

Suggested changes to the project process which will reduce variation against plan or process definition.