Auditing is essential to ensure the success of any project. Auditing a project is essential to verify that the project is viable in a business sense, confirm that the project can move onto the next phase and to identify any issues that may have arisen during execution. The audits will help to reassure the project management.
Each audit plan should include a clearly defined audit scope, audit criteria and audit team, with the roles and responsibilities assigned. The project kick-off and framing project plans are the entry criteria for an audit.
A well-executed project audit can yield many benefits.
The most important benefit is the ability early to spot problems.
Access to performance/project costs/project timeline interrelationships
Improve overall project performance
Ability to recognize potential opportunities
For the project team, a well-informed appraisal
Reduce time, effort, waste, material, and costs
The following best practices for project auditing are necessary to ensure that the right parameters and audits are carried out. These best practices serve as a guideline when planning an audit. Let’s now examine the different factors that should be considered when planning an audit.
Auditing the project should be done early in the project to ensure that compliances are checked early.
Planning organizational level audits should be done so that each department and all business processes can be checked for compliance with organizational values and processes. These audits should be performed at least once every six months.
Audits are best done before each phase or milestone is completed. This will reduce the severity of errors, regardless of whether they are code, process or other.
It is important to remember that the audit team should not be tied to the project team. The audit team should be educated about the process and best practices.
A lead auditor should be a member of the audit team who will be the “go to” person for project audit activities.
It is important to clearly define the audit scope and audit criteria, and highlight the differences between them. Audit scope is the definition of the boundaries and limits within which the audit will take place, while audit criteria are the lists of processes or standards against whom the project will be audited.

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