When things don’t appear to be going according to plan, an outside expert assessment will identify what you’re doing well, and what could be improved. Through interviewing stakeholders, team members, the project sponsor and the project manager — in addition to reviewing key project documents and/or financial records — Procept can provide an independent evaluation of your PM processes, an in-flight project or program, or a portfolio of projects to identify process compliance, inconsistencies or weaknesses, financial issues, or lessons learned that can be used to improve project management and governance processes.

Procept has performed project audits:

• For new projects to provide advice on how to bring the project plans into alignment with best practices.
• At the restart of troubled projects to provide confidence on the soundness of the project recovery plan.
• During projects as a regular health check to understand the current state and increase project success.
• On completed projects to document and understand what went wrong (or what went right) for future projects.

Our highly-credentialed project audit team includes those whose credentials include Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), Certification in Risk Management Assurance (CRMA), Certified Management Accountant (CMA), and Project Management Professional (PMP). With experience ranging across public and private sectors and across many industries, we have the expertise to assess your project.

Procept’s project audits can cover several areas of scope:

Type of Audit	Options
Financial Audit	Full forensic audit to look for errors and fraud Mini-audit that samples financial records to assess reasonableness and provide a level of confidence
Process Compliance Audit	Compares project plans/performance against best practices (PMI, IPMA, ISO, etc.) Compares project plans/performance against an organization’s own regulations and procedures
Contract Compliance Audit	Compares project plans/performance against all contractual requirements and terms (normally combined with a financial or process compliance audit)

 
Procept’s process for conducting Project Management Audits involves:

1. AUDIT PROGRAM PREPARATION — Identify client objectives and prepare an audit plan.
2. INFORMATION GATHERING — Collect data that includes project documents, interviews, focus groups sessions, or online questionnaires.
3. DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS — Identify trends, causal relationships and correlations.
4. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS — Prepare a draft report summarizing the data analysis and findings, and that also provides recommendations for immediate and long-term improvements.
5. FINAL REPORT — Final report and presentation incorporating client’s response to the draft report.
    

EXAMPLES OF OUR WORK

As one of Canada’s premiere project management consulting firms, Procept has performed numerous audits of individual projects and of clients’ project management governance and processes. Here are just a few examples:

• Bruce Power – Bruce Power hired Procept to create its internal project management methodology, including the project management process model and a PM process guide integrated into the organization’s existing document management system. As part of the rollout, Procept provided training in the use of the process model and guide. Following this rollout, Procept assisted Bruce Power with auditing in-flight projects to see if they had adapted to the new methodology and identify gaps.
• Ontario Power Generation – OPG Nuclear division hired Procept to perform a project management process benchmarking study to see how the organization performed against a number of other nuclear and non-nuclear organizations of similar size and complexity with regards to how well it is managing its projects. Procept looked at both PM process effectiveness and project outputs and conducted both qualitative and quantitative (metrics-based) analyses. OPG was benchmarked against several large organizations including nuclear companies such as Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
• Government of Nunavut – Responding to issues identified in a Federal Auditor General report, Nunavut’s department of Community and Government Services hired Procept to provide financial and project management audits of capital projects. Procept project management experts conducted the PM process audits and a Procept financial expert (CPA) performed the project financial audits. Under this initiative, Procept conducted two key audits: a full financial and process audit of an airport expansion program, and a financial and process audit of a broad array of smaller projects across many municipalities and territorial offices. Each resulted in a substantial report documenting issues, lessons learned, and performance improvements. Specific issues were identified in several areas:
  • Recruitment, retention and development of project staff
  • Organizational issues
  • Project management policy
  • Project management methodology
  • Planning and design issues
  • Budget adjustments and transfers
  • Cut-off issues involving year-end expenses
  • Project delivery model issues
• eHealth Ontario – This government agency hired Procept to assess its existing project management governance structure, policies, project management methodology, and project funding mechanisms to identify areas for improvement in advance of a larger initiative to roll-out agile project management practices. Procept reviewed the existing policies, processes and frameworks to identify areas for improvement where they were not following industry best practices, plus further “mini-audits” of individual projects to see how they were complying with the overall project governance system and to identify areas where the existing governance system did not support the project adequately, resulting in project-level process work arounds. The resulting report led to extensive process changes at this government agency.
• Canadian Institute for Health Information – CIHI’s PMO engaged Procept to identify areas where their existing project management methodology did not align with best practices and to make recommendations for improvement. This was done through looking at the existing methodology documentation, interviewing key process stakeholders, as well as looking at the performance (and challenges) of several key projects. Procept prepared a list of recommendations plus developed just-in-time training modules to provide targeted training to address process awareness and compliance issues at the project team level.
• StarTech.com – This distributor of computer cables and adaptors hired Procept to perform a project audit covering two of its key initiatives. Procept examined project documentation, conducted interviews of stakeholders and project team members, and reviewed process standards for compliance issues. The resulting report listed over 80 recommendations for improvement, ranked by a combination of priority, impact and risk level.