The post-implementation audit is somewhat like lessons learned activity in that it provides great information to use on future project engagements, but it's more of an evaluation of the project's goals and activity achievement as measured against the project plan, budget, time deadlines, quality of deliverables, specifications, and client satisfaction. The log of the project activities serves as baseline data for this audit. There are six important questions to be answered:
Was the project goal achieved?
- Does it do what the project team said it would do?
- Does it do what the client said it would do?
The project was justified based on a goal to be achieved. It either was or it wasn't, and an answer to that question must be provided in the audit. The question can be asked and answered from two different perspectives. The provider may have suggested a solution for which certain results were promised. Did that happen? On the other hand, the requestor may have promised that if the provider would only provide, say, a new or improved system, certain results would occur. Did that happen?
Was the project work done on time, within budget, and according to specification?
The key constraints on projects are time, cost, and the customer's specification, as well as resource availability and quality. Here we are concerned with whether the specification was met within the budgeted time and cost constraints. As always, tools such as Seavus' Project Viewer used in conjunction with MS Project can help monitor the status of the project throughout the engagement.
Was the client satisfied with the project results?
It is possible that the answers to the first two questions are yes, while the answer to this question is no. How can that happen?
The project manager did not check with the customer to see if the needs had changed; the customer did not inform the project manager that such changes had occurred. It often boils down to communication issues.
Was business value realized?
The success criteria were the basis on which the business case for the project was built and were the primary reason why the project was approved. Did we realize that promised value? When the success criteria measure improvement in profit or market share or other bottom-line parameters, we may not be able to answer this question until some time after the project is closed.
What lessons were learned about your project management methodology?
Companies that have or are developing a project management methodology will want to use completed projects to assess how well the methodology is working. Different parts of the methodology may work well for certain types of projects or in certain situations, and these should be noted in the audit. These lessons will be valuable in tweaking the methodology or simply noting how to apply the methodology when a given situation arises. This part of the audit might also consider how well the team used the methodology, which is related to, yet different from, how well the methodology worked.
What worked? What didn't?
The answers to these questions are helpful hints and suggestions for future project managers and teams. The experiences of past project teams are real 'diamonds in the rough”; you will want to pass them on to future teams.
The post-implementation audit is seldom done. This is unfortunate because it does have great value for all stakeholders. Some of the reasons for skipping the audit include these:
Managers don't want to know.They reason that the project is done and what difference does it make whether things happened the way we said they would? It is time to move on. Managers don't want to pay the cost.The pressures of the budget (both time and money) are such that they would rather spend resources on the next project than on those already done.
It's not a high priority.Other projects are waiting to have work done on them, and completed projects don't rate very high on the priority list.
There's too much other billable work to do.Post-implementation audits are not billable work, and they have billable work on other projects to do.
Summary
Even though post-implementation audits are rarely performed for various reasons, it's potential value is very clear. There is so much valuable information that can be extracted and used in other projects. Organizations have such a difficult time deploying and improving their project management process and practice that it would be a shame to pass up the greatest source of information to help that effort. Understandably, though, the hardest roadblock to overcome when trying to get a post-implementation audit to actually happen is all the work that is waiting for everyone on other projects as this current project wraps up.