How do you audit or review a project?

To audit/review a project: 1. Understand goals, scope, align review. 2. Gather docs: plans, requirements, comms. 3. Assess execution, milestones, resources. 4. Evaluate quality, best practice adherence. 5. Identify risks, impact, mitigation. 6. Align with stakeholders, gather feedback. 7. Review team interaction, issue resolution. 8. Test functionality, performance, security. 9. Verify budget, timeline adherence. 10. Check documentation accuracy, completeness. 11. Learn from successes, plan improvements. 12. Summarize findings, suggest enhancements.

?? In my opinion, understanding the purpose and scope requires thorough groundwork and clarity. ?? Establishing objectives provides direction. Clearly set what the audit intends to achieve to form a structured path ahead. ?? Rigor in defining scope averts drifting. Precisely outline the areas to be audited and establish boundaries to avoid scope creep. ?? Engage stakeholders early. Their insights can illuminate overlooked aspects, enhancing the comprehensiveness of the audit scope. ?? Specify protocols for clarity. Detail the mechanisms for audit execution, data collection, and issue escalation to streamline processes.

Oil and gas projects undergo several audits/reviews, each with a specific purpose. - Hazard & Operability Studies (HAZOP). They are designed to look at possible process upsets that can originate from process control malfunction, equipment failure, or operator error. - Layout Review: This involves reviewing the safety of the plant layout, taking into account the partitioning and separation distances between plant units to limit the extent of potential fires to certain areas. - 3D Model Reviews: The facility's digital or physical models are audited for feasibility, functionality, constructability, etc. For each review, a comprehensive report is prepared outlining findings, any identified issues, and suggested remedial measures.

The first step in any audit or review engagement is to understand its scope and purpose, whether it is as per a statutory requirement or for a management's desire to have a detailed opinion for decision making. Understanding this makes the first step for an auditor and that's how we plan our review projects. Planning ahead, defining a programme, allocating resources with their roles and a continuous review of our own process so as to plug any deficiencies in our reporting and ensuring the review is completed efficiently and in effective costing to the management.

Key purpose of the 'define' stage is to understand the objective of the audit. Do the objectives, goals and scope align with stakeholder expectations? Are there communications or internal reporting issues. How do the current plans, align to peoples expectations? Does the project need a reset in terms of it's direction, compared to what it was originally setup to achieve?

The foundation to a successful audit is reliable information. Gathering sufficient evidence and ensuring its reliability is a must in any audit engagement. For that, auditors resort to different methods, the primary one still being their professional skepticism, the practical training experience. A walk through approach is imperative to understand the flow of information and funds. Basis that, we vouch the documents, conduct interviews, understand the Financial Reporting Framework being followed, get external confirmations, management representations and compare information from different sources for discrepancies in the reporting framework.

The key is to establish good measures, which we can then observe. Do not at this stage fall into the trap of seeing a potential problem and diving into the minutia. Be objective, gather as much information as possible and try and identify how these have changed over time, particularly from the point of project inception. Interview stakeholders, team members, PMO and get a broad range of responses.

The best way to gather data and evidence is to participate in a project as observer. This way you get information on a real-time basis, you monitor the development of the project, assess how risks are taking into account and are able to issue a final report at the end of the accounting year (the project might not have been finished by then). The audit report then serves as feedback information to the project team and they are able to take some of the recommendations on board.

Once sufficient evidence has been collected and verified for its authenticity and reliability, auditors make use of their skills and techniques to identify exposure in reporting process, possibilities of a fraud and genuine mistakes made. Analysing the reports generated by the softwares used, performing ratio analysis, compararing data from past periods, budget and trend analysis and Cost Revenue Analysis provide a broad framework for analysis. All discrepanices are looked into, keeping in mind, the materiality of the cause. A SWOT analysis can also help the auditor form base for his report to the stakeholders and help them make decisions accordingly.

Now is the time to look at a project's health, organisation and objectives. Start by structuring the data collected in the previous step. - Classify the information, and split into data types (qualitative & quantitative). - Evaluate performance measures defined in step 1 and look for variances - are they operating within acceptable limits? - Look across other dimensions such as quality, resources and time - Evaluate project risks, are they being identified and managed in a timely manner - Evaluate the level of stakeholder involvement, to identify opportunities for improvement - Scope, managed proactively - can scope be reduced without impacting the outcomes of the project?

Custom-tailor the report's tone, depth, and format to resonate with your audience, whether they're data-driven executives craving succinct summaries or detail-oriented experts seeking in-depth insights. Elevate your reporting by aligning with organizational guidelines, ensuring your report not only informs but also captivates and empowers stakeholders to embrace positive change.

The audit must be clear to everyone involved. It means that the communication must be mandatory since the beginning (and before audits). If each part give their best to reach the goals and try to adhere to the process, the audit will become easy and soft

This is one of the crucial steps when it comes to project review. Making an analysis of what went wrong and right, and not following up with your team on implementing the recommendations becomes useless. Following up, talking and communicating to your team about how to improve the processes and approaches must be a vital step for all the project managers when it comes to ameliorating business operations and results.

To maximize the benefits of a project audit, it's essential to share the results and lessons learned with project managers and stakeholders. This ensures that future projects, especially those facing similar challenges, can proactively address potential issues. Moreover, this approach paves the way for proactive problem-solving. A central project office can help by picking the most useful findings and sharing them with new projects.

Design package needs to be reviewed for 1. Constructibility 2. Risks in procurement, fabrication transportation, installation, interfaces and contracting strategy 3. Resourcefulness of contractors