Project Review vs. Project Audit

During your career as a project manager, you might endure people poking through one of your projects, looking for things to improve. There are two typical approaches for this: a project review and a project audit. The differences are important, because a project manager needs to behave differently for each of these improvement initiatives.

A Project Review typically…

• Is a supportive exercise. The intent is to discover improvement opportunities. It is performed with the project team.
• Has unlimited scope. The review can look at any aspect of the project. The reviewers can interview any project stakeholder.
• Examines management practices and implementation approaches. The review team searches for opportunities to streamline methodologies. Also, they look to enhance communications and create better business outcomes.
• Focuses on improving future projects. Project reviews deliver recommendations that aren’t mandatory to put into action on your project. The intent is to enhance project management going forward.
• Can be performed at any time. Teams conduct reviews while a project is running or after project completion.

When involved in a project review, the project manager should:

• Collaborate with the reviewers. Work in harmony to achieve the goal of improving the current project and future projects for the organization. 
• Negotiate interview schedules with reviewers for a current project. Leading a project efficiently is the best way to deliver outcomes for the business. Help the reviewers understand your schedule and the availability of stakeholders to minimize the impact on project deadlines.
• Make information readily available and act on recommendations. Share any documentation you have available and seriously consider any recommendations for new project management deliverables that the reviewers suggest. This is the best way to improve project delivery.

A Project Audit typically…

• Evaluates compliance, with a pass/fail outcome. The focus is on government regulations, internal processes, or specific project objectives. For example, have public funds for a project been managed per government regulations?
• Has limited scope. An audit involves only stakeholders and management practices associated with specified compliance objectives.
• Is conducted by personnel external to the project. These can be government officials or an organization’s internal staff with full-time compliance responsibilities.
• Occurs during project execution. Because an audit often disrupts the project schedule, you will have to adjust some things. More significant audits are best managed as mini-project in parallel with the reviewed project to minimize the impact on project deadlines.
• Yields findings that must be addressed. Responses to audit findings are mandatory. They adjust the execution of the reviewed project and projects in the future.

When involved in a project audit, the project manager should:

• Focus on passing the audit.  You want the project found to be compliant with the target of the audit. Then, you want the auditors to leave you alone, so you can get on with your project. Being left alone is why it’s important for the project manager and team members to relay only information about the target of the audit. Going beyond the target area invites other investigations, which elongates the audit and further delays your project.
• Figure out the auditor’s goal. Many auditors have one goal: to find an issue. They do that because they feel it validates their job. Others have a more balanced goal of finding issues if they exist, and not reporting findings otherwise. Collaboration might work when dealing with balanced auditors. Strictly sticking to the scope of the audit and “answering the question and only the question” is the best approach with less than balanced auditors. How can you tell if they are balanced or not? This is usually a judgment call, but the tone of the documentation you receive from auditors prior to the start of the audit gives you significant clues. If I am unsure of the auditor’s approach, I behave as if they are NOT balanced until they prove otherwise.
• Accommodate the auditors schedule whenever possible. Auditors typically have a scripted approach to conducting an audit. Working within that script helps you get through the audit in the least amount of time, minimizing project disruption. So, strive to make stakeholders whose are relevant to the audit scope available to the auditors upon request. Push back if they request interviews with stakeholders whose role is out of scope of the audit.
• Admit an issue if it exists and the auditors are en route to discovering it. Remember the goal of reducing the impact of the audit on your project. While dealing with audit findings is time consuming, if you are out of compliance, it’s better to resolve the issue. Reporting the issue shows cooperation. And the auditors may help you work through the best approach to resolution based on their experience. If auditors aren’t on a path to discover an issue, work to learn from their investigation. This can help you resolve an issue on your own, in a proper time, in a way that best serves your organization.

Have you been through a project review or audit? If you have any best or (if you’re willing) worst practices, share with us in the comments section.

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 65,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

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