The Project Audit from Andy Jordan Perspective

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting Inc. and I really enjoyed reading Andy's perspective on the The Project Audit.

Over the months and years I’ve written about a lot of aspects of a PMO, but I’ve never touched on a project audit. In this article I want to provide an overview of what I think the most useful form of project audit is, and why it’s of benefit to an organization to conduct periodic audits.

To some of you this may be a new concept; to others, you may have been subjected to (or performed) project audits already. Either way, it’s worth defining my view of an audit as it may be different from yours. To me, an audit is a review of different aspects of a project by an expert from outside of the project. Typically this will be a PMO function and may cover a number of different aspects--compliance, results, timeliness, etc.

You may have slightly different definitions within your organizations, but I am going to work from this one for this article. I’m deliberately avoiding things like one-off audits of a specific project which are usually focused more on the specific deliverables/challenges of that initiative, rather than on project management as a whole.

The best kind of audit By their nature, audits can look at a multitude of different aspects of a project, but I strongly feel that they deliver the best results when targeted appropriately. An audit that looks to ensure that every box is correctly completed on a status report is not going to do much to advance project management discipline, and it may set it back by alienating project managers.

Instead, an audit should focus on the process of project management, and the following questions are key:

Is each step in the process achieving its intended goals?
Are the tools and templates adequately supporting each step in the process?
Are the processes being complied with and are the standards being met?
Is management of the project consistent with other similar projects?

For a PMO that’s focused on improving the way that projects are executed, this should be sufficient. Anything more granular than this becomes an analysis of the details of the way that a PM manages and runs the risk of getting into issues of different project management styles.
The way that the audit is conducted is also important. Many of you will have been subjected to more formal audit processes where nameless people walk around saying nothing and making notes--it’s not a comfortable situation.

Far better is to make the audit a collaborative process. Have the auditor work with the project manager, and position the audit as a chance to improve the way that projects are handled across the entire organization (more on that later). Even the way that the questions are asked can make a huge difference. For example, “How easy do you find it to follow that template?” is likely to get a much more constructive (and ultimately helpful) response than “Why don’t you fill in this box?”

Maybe most important of all is the way that project managers see auditors. The natural reaction by most PMs is to see the auditor as “against” them, and I always try and turn that around. If I am auditing, I will start by meeting with the project manager to discuss the areas that are likely to be of focus, but in a way that makes the PM an integral part of the process. A question as simple as “What part of the process do you find the most frustrating?” is an easy way to try and identify areas of focus in a way that encourages the PM to be part of the process.

The audit processFor an audit to be successful, you have to know how it is carried out. Is this simply going to be a series of questions and a review of documentation, or is there going to be a quantitative element as well? If you are looking at data, then what data points are going to be considered and what can they be compared against? There may be some value in knowing that the PM spends two hours a week updating the project plan, but there’s a lot more value in knowing what the numbers are from other projects to have something to compare against.
If the process is purely qualitative, then how will you ask questions: interviews, group discussions, questionnaires or a combination? How will you present the questions to the team? You need to get honest feedback rather than the answers that they think you want, but you also need to make sure that it’s not a confrontational relationship that could cause them to shut down completely.

There needs to be consistency in the way that audits are conducted. You need to be able to compare results across projects--both similar and different. The most meaningful results are not the data elements or findings from one particular project, but rather the trends that occur across projects.

Finally, you need to consider how many projects will be audited. It likely isn’t practical to audit every project (although it may be possible to capture data points on completed projects), but what is the correct mix of projects based on type, size, project manager, etc.? In some cases, you may want to audit the same project multiple times--especially if it’s a long-term initiative.
Analyzing the auditThe most important part of a project audit is going to be interpreting results and acting accordingly. This is an area that can lead to mistakes, so care is needed. In some cases, trends will occur across audits--one particular template or process that just doesn’t seem to be working. That’s easy to address--you revisit the process and make adjustments to try and address the identified problems. Then you reassess after the changes have been made to see whether the expected improvements have occurred. Similarly, if a project manager is struggling with one particular aspect, it may signify a need for training of that individual--a quick lift in their skills that solves the problem permanently.

Not all audit findings are so clear-cut, however. Consider the project manager who isn’t following one aspect of the process. Is this simply a training issue, or is there something else going on? Is it possible that the PM in question has actually found a better way of doing things? It’s entirely possible that the outcome of this audit should be a change to the process to include the changes that the project manager made on their own initiative. That’s not to say that there shouldn’t also be some training for the PM on the right way to introduce process enhancements, but the auditor should never lose sight of the overall goals of the audit process--to improve the quality of project management within the organization.

Conclusion Audits should be an important part of the PMO’s governance of projects within an organization. They are a connection to what is actually happening on projects. While audits can be a “stick” that forces compliance with process, that’s not the real value they bring. Instead, they should be able to help identify areas that require focus to improve the way that projects should be managed. Far from being something to be feared, that’s something that project managers should embrace--after all, you all want a better way of managing projects.