Episode 155 Premium: The Auditors Are Gone! The Auditors Are Gone!

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One of the most important activities that we project managers do (or are supposed to do) is lessons learned. We are supposed to look back at a past project, make note of what went well and what didn't go well and use this learning as a means to improve our processes and our project management methodology.

In this interview Kristine Hayes Munson, PMP takes us through her lessons learned. The auditors have left her organization after several weeks of in-depth audits and now she is taking stock of their visit and shares her findings with us.

Don't forget - we are still giving away 1 license of projectmanager.com - As always: 1 copy is already reserved for all you premium subscribers. Reserving 1 copy of each giveaway for you automatically is my way of saying thank you for your finacial support. If you want to double your chances to win, then please go ahead and enter manually into the contest as well by going to our Facebook Fan Page, find the announcement of this license giveaway and simply add a quick comment. Just say "I want to win" or "Me! Me! Me" or something equally silly..

Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only. Please subscribe to our Premium Podcast to receive a PDF transcript

Podcast Introduction

Cornelius Fichtner: This is The Project Management Podcast™. We bring project management to beginners and experts. Find us on the web at www.pm‑podcast.com or send your emails to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello and welcome to this Premium Episode #155. I am Cornelius Fichtner. This is The Project Management Podcast™, nice to have you with us. And once again, this is a Premium Episode only for you, our premium subscribers.

One of the most important activities that we, project managers, do or at least are supposed to do is lessons learned. We are supposed to look back at a past project, make note of what went well and what didn't go well and use this learning as a means to improve our processes and our project management methodology.

In this interview, Kristine Hayes Munson, PMP takes us through her lessons learned. The auditors have left her organization after several weeks of in-depth audits and now she is taking stock of their visit and shares her findings with us.

Don't forget: We are still giving away 1 license of www.projectmanager.com. As always, 1 copy is already reserved for all you premium subscribers. Reserving 1 copy of each giveaway for you automatically is my way of saying thank you. If you want to double your chances to win, well then please go ahead and enter also manually into the contest as well by going to www.facebook.com/pmpodcast Find the announcement of this license giveaway, you probably have to scroll down a bit and simply add a quick comment. Just say "I want to win" or "Me! Me! Me!" or something equally silly.

And now, enjoy the interview.

Podcast Interview

Female voice: The Project Management Podcast’s feature Interview: Today with Kristine Hayes Munson, PMP.

Cornelius Fichtner: Kristine, once again, hello and welcome to The Project Management Podcast™!

Kristine Hayes Munson: Thank you.

Cornelius Fichtner: The question that I did not ask you in the first interview where we talked about corporate audit being here in your division was, where there any surprises? Did anything happen that you didn’t expect that would happen? This is going to be the discussion of the next few minutes here. So let’s set the stage here. What did the auditors do in your division historically?

Kristine Hayes Munson: Historically, they would come and they would look at very low level things. And as almost an attitude of “Got yeah!”. So for example on a development project, they’d pull all the development artifacts for a specific project and then they go through in tic and tie. Did the manager sign off on the business requirements document? Did you have the right signatures to move your code from the UAT environment and to production? Was all very, very tactical?

Cornelius Fichtner: So are your I’s dotted, are your T’s crossed? Are the forms filled in?

Kristine Hayes Munson: And did you even use the right template?

Cornelius Fichtner: Oh!

Kristine Hayes Munson: So down to that level of granularity. Did you use the right template?

And this time, they have a new audit management in place and they were very focused on management understanding risks and the way that they felt that the cast of management understood the risks is through how management monitored and controlled the environment day-to-day so remember back to the PMBOK® Guide where monitor and control is one of those words that you’ve heard. And it’s always one of those that one of our kind of PMP prep class whatever I just kind of skipped over, oh yeah, there’s monitor and control, right? We plan, we execute, oh yeah, we monitor and control.

But this time, monitoring and controlling was corporate audit’s primary focus and the primary questions they ask, as a matter of fact, they didn’t even pull any of the development artifacts for example, the same example I used a second ago, to see if they used the right template, to see if management…

Cornelius Fichtner: So they didn’t look at the actual project documentation, initiation reports and all that?

Kristine Hayes Munson: They didn’t look at the documentation at all. Not at all.

Cornelius Fichtner: Why do you think they made this change?

Kristine Hayes Munson: Because they realized that anybody can dot the I’s and cross the T’s. But what was really important was to make sure management really knew what was going on at all times in the environment. So was management actually addressing the business requirements and the needs of the clients that were requesting the development? Was management really monitoring and controlling to make sure that individuals were following the procedures and that code did not magically go to production without the stuff making sure that we knew that the security standards were being routinely applied on the network at the GPO level, whatever piece and part that we knew what was going on. And if there was an issue, they were actually refreshingly aware of the fact that we all have issues and gaps with where we should be from the idealized standard. They want to make sure that management knew what those gaps were and that management was taking appropriate action to mitigate those gaps.

Cornelius Fichtner: How did the auditors go about identifying whether or not management was aware of these things? What type of questions did they ask?

Above are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete PDF transcript is available to Premium subscribers only.