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| See Also Improvement Suggestion Template Audit Plan Template Audit Report Template |
| Audit ( 2 : PPQA : 1 : 1.1 ) ( 2 : PPQA : 1 : 1.2 ) ( 2 : PPQA : 2 : 2.1 ) ( 2 : PPQA : 2 : 2.2 ) ( 2 : CM : 3 : 3.2 ) Auditor
Activity: Audit
Auditor
|  |  |  | Governance |  |
|  | Participating Roles Responsible: Auditor Accountable: Auditor Consult: Any Informed: All
### Overview The purpose of audits is to use an independent auditor who is not a team member to objectively assess how well the team is doing at following the process and to measure the variation from initial analysis and estimation against actual work completed. It should be informative to the individuals involved and used to improve how things get done. Audits are excellent sources of improvement suggestions, since the details of processes are looked at and scrutinized. The auditor works with the individuals involved to resolve any identified issues. If no resolution can be made, a corrective action is opened.Two types of audits are possible: audit against plan, and audit against process definition. Either type could be conducted in this activity. # Entry Criteria Audit Request An audit of a specific process is requested. Audit Artifacts The appropriate artifacts are indicated and available from the data store. When: Upon request, or as planned. # Sub-Activities
1 | Plan Audit | Create a plan for what is to be audited, when it will start and end, and who will be involved. 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 | Initiate Audit | The audit is typically started with a meeting to discuss the purpose and scope of the audit with the involved individuals.
4 | Gather Audit Work Products | The work products needed to successfully execute the requested audit should be identified and collected.
5 | Review Work Products | Conduct the audit by reviewing the work products with relevant team members.
6 | 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.
7 | Review Audit Findings | The auditor meets with the involved individuals to review audit findings to give them a chance to provide additional evidence, correct any misinformation, and rectify any issues.
8 | Report Audit | The auditor creates a report of the audit that summarizes the processes covered, issues found, resolutions made, and any outstanding issues.
9 | Open Corrective Action Requests | Optional Corrective action change requests are opened against appropriate issues that cannot be resolved during the audit.
10 | Capture Improvement Suggestions | Optional Many times, an audit will uncover excellent improvement suggestions. The auditor identifies and captures the improvement suggestions based on any root cause analysis and special or common cause assessment of variation from process or plan to reduce variation in the future.
# Exit Criteria
| The audit report has been created and sent to all interested parties.
| Improvement suggestions are created, when appropriate.
| Corrective action change requests are opened, when necessary.
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