>>hi, i'm devin deen, content director, hereat projectmanager.com. [music intro] >>hi, today we're going to talk about howto audit a project. when you go out at a project, you're looking for two things. you're lookingto make sure that the project is doing the right things. secondly, you want to make sure the projectis doing things right. when you go out to that project, you want to make sure that theproject team and the stakeholders, everyone around that project is receiving that auditwith open arms. for example, you don't want to have the projectteam think that they are being put under the
microscope and looked at through a magnifyingglass about all the little bits and pieces that they're doing. instead, you want to havethat project team embrace that audit. it's similar to the way a coach is going tocoach an athlete. that athlete is looking forward to getting the feedback and the pointersfrom their coach, so they can refine and improve their process and be a better athlete. that'sthe kind of culture and environment you want when you go into the audit. if you have the previous culture where peopleare being a little bit scared that they're going to get looked at or asking questionsabout the project, i'd prefer not to actually do the audit at that time and improve theculture. once that's done, get their defenses
down, if you will, and open to hearing anyfeedback that you have, then go ahead and commence the audit. how do you do the audit? first things first.look for the project doing the right things. doing the right things is all about the mechanicsof how that project is operating. go to the project manager a day before you need thefollowing items. first off, you want to ask them for the lastfour to six status reports. next, ask them for the issues, the risks, and the changerequest registers. after you get those registers, ask them togive you the statement of work, with a project charter or terms of reference, whatever thatproject used to initiate the project. it might
be just a kick off presentation. you're lookingfor the starting point, the baseline of the starting point of that project. lastly, what you want to get is also the paymentof their suppliers. get the last three months. if the project has only been running for amonth, get the last month's, ok. basically, you want to get some evidence of the projectpaying the suppliers as it has commenced. when you get these artifacts together, likei said, you should only give the project manager a day's heads up. they should be able to producethese things quickly for you if they're using project management software, like projectmanager.com,for example. they should just give you a login and direct you to where they have these variousartifacts within the software, so you can
view them. if they ask for a week to come back, to giveyou this information, that should actually be a signal to you that there is some trouble,because what they're trying to do is then update those registers and take the week todo it. a project that's operating healthily and doing the right things, should have thisinformation updated on a weekly basis as part of the mechanics of the project. when you get these registers, what you wantto look for is activity. if you have a kick off presentation or statement of work, you'vegot a scope statement of what it's doing, then you actually find out that the project'sdoing something slightly different, you want
to see evidence of that change in a changerequest register or a change control form. if that doesn't happen. if that change requestform or that item of change isn't in the register, then that's an indication that the projectis encountering scope creep, but not documenting that. that's a problem. it's a problem because you'll have stakeholdersthat are expecting one thing from the statement of work or the project charter and actuallythey're getting something different because the project is doing something different.not having that difference be documented or agreed by the stakeholders or the budget holdersof the project. likewise, if you look at an issues registerand there's the entries from the start of
the project, but if the project has movedon in time, let's say it's two months in and there's no change on those issues that wereactually keyed in during the start of the project and project planning, then there'san evidence there that the project actually isn't managing issues actively. likewise with the risks. you should see changesin those registers as compared to when those registers were first put together. if you'renot seeing any evidence of those changes, that's an indication to you that the projectis actually just in a reactionary mode. they're letting the project and the tasks manage themversus the project management team and the team members actually managing the project.
these are the things that project team usesto actively manage a project to make sure they stay on the rail, stay focused on thescope, hit their deadlines and deliver things that are fit for purpose. you're looking for smoke here. if you seeany smokey items, things that look a little bit off, then there is nine times out of ten,there's some fire behind that smoke. it might be cause for you to open up the hood a littlebit more on that project and do a more detailed audit. let's say that you've looked at these registersand the artifacts and the project team is doing the right things. the next thing youwant to look for is, are they doing things
right. doing things right is all about deliveringtheir artifacts or working in a healthy manner, that is, with quality. as an example, when you're looking into doingthings right, there's a couple of things you want to get together. first off, i'd get thelast three deliverables or artifacts. let's say for example, you're developing some softwareand you're in the design phase of the project, go get the requirements document. go get theinterview notes that the team members did when they were interviewing the end usersfor the requirements for that piece of software. if you are building a building, go get theblueprints for the building or go get a code of compliance certificate, if you will, fromthe council, showing evidence that the construction
team has actually passed the plans throughcouncil and they endorse them. you want about three deliverables. go talkto three team members. i find that if you talk to one team member, you'll get one perspectiveof what's going on in the project. if you talk to a second one, you might get two perspectives.really, you want three perspectives or frames of reference to give you more of a roundedview of how that project team is interacting and working together. there's a theme here. go talk to three stakeholders.once you get the view of what the team is doing and you've seen evidence of their work,go get the stakeholders view on that. see what they have to say about how the team iscommunicating and interacting with them and
what they think about the quality of thosedeliverables. when you get those deliverables, you certainlywant to have a look at the acceptance criteria for them and make a judgement call yourselfto see if those deliverables meet the acceptance criteria and if they've been signed off bythe stakeholders. these are the basics of doing a quick auditon a project. it shouldn't take you more than two to three days to conduct this. reallywhat you're looking for in these quick audits is if there are any issues that are sort ofcome to mind that you may want to look at a little bit better. certainly at the back end of the audit, youwant to get the project management together
and the rest of the project team, give themyour feedback and help them hone and refine their skills to make that project work ina more fluid manner. if your project team, your stakeholders andyour client culture is a functional one, they will look at this audit as a part of the qualityassurance process, something that they're all looking forward to doing, not a bit ofdrudgery, but certainly something that they want to do and they need to do, so they canget that feedback. just like an athlete would from a coach and improve the way they're workingand get to a better outcome. for other project management tips and techniquesand to try out our software, come sign up at projectmanager.com.