How to Manage Project Reviews or Audits

A project review is typically run from within an organization, while an external compliance-monitoring organization, such as a consulting firm or government agency, often conducts a project audit. Without the proper perspective, a project review or audit can be like a trip to the dentist. Here are different management approaches you should take with project reviews and audits to make them as constructive as possible.

• Understand the scope of the exercise. The first step to support a review or audit is to understand its scope and intent. Typically, the primary topics are: 1. compliance with documented processes or accepted practices and 2. the mindful use of money. For a supportive review, share the available documentation concerning the project so the review team can select what they want to review. Government audits (or reviews that are trying to target errors rather than educate or be supportive) are a different story. For these, ask the audit or review team what documentation they require and provide that. This will limit the scope of the audit/review and make the exercise easier to manage. Note: you might be tempted to flood auditors with lots of documentation to show your project control capability. However, that usually backfires, because it gives auditors more targets to investigate.

• Gather information on your project management processes. Have artifacts ready to show that you’ve conformed with agreed-to project management processes. If you haven’t complied with a documented process, demonstrate that you consciously did that with management’s concurrence so you can provide that to the review or audit team. Documentation that review teams typically request include risk or change logs, your project schedule with notes on the assumptions used to build it (like team member availability of 30 hours per week), and decision logs.

• If you discover that you overlooked a process, proactively create an action plan to correct that oversight. Say you’re preparing for a review or audit and find an obvious deficiency. Correct it by developing an action plan to implement the overlooked process. If there is time before the review or audit begins, document progress against your action plans. The team may still ask questions about this oversight. However, reviewers and auditors usually react positively to proactive corrective actions.
• Document important conversations. A project management best practice is to document key conversations, especially when the people involved made decisions. However, you might discover that some conversations slipped through the cracks. If you discover gaps in your documentation, go back and fill them in including signatures from the parties to the agreement. DON’T backdate the documents you create. (Use the current date, even though that highlights belated documentation.) If the reviews or audit team discovers your backdating practice, your integrity will be in question, which results in more scrutiny that will cause interruptions and delay you from returning to the job of delivering your project.
• Answer questions.– If the review or audit is focused on compliance and not supportive of you and the project team, answer only the questions asked. Based on the approach of a supportive review team, use your judgment and share information you believe is constructive. You should manage auditors differently, because they are searching for compliance items to scrutinize. “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” should be shared with auditors…but don’t go beyond the scope of the question asked. Doing so will raise more questions and potentially expand the scope of the audit. Coach your project team members to follow this practice and things will be easier to manage. It’s also wise to debrief team members questioned by auditors and log the exchanged questions and answers. That makes it easier to respond to follow up queries from auditors or get clarification when an audit team comes to a conclusion that doesn’t reflect reality.
• If auditors are on track to discover something, share the issue and ask for advice. Trying to hide something ends badly when auditors discover deception. (We’ve watched enough police procedural TV shows to know that!) Develop an action plan to address the problem and then share the issue and plan with the audit team and ask for their advice. Using the audit as an improvement opportunity is a positive outcome, which is much better than being seen as someone who didn’t pay proper attention to project governance and tried to hide it. Be as open as possible with a supportive review team. You might find they have experience, hints and tips that will help your project and help you in your project management career.

If you have any tips on how to handle audits and reviews, share with us in the comments section!