Can Auditors Prevent Project Failure?
This column focuses on a serious concern to business managers: What causes large software projects to have huge cost and timescale overruns and/or fail to meet expectations or, at worst, be abandoned before completion?
1. Change Management
2. Auditing Change Control Processes
Hello professor, here is my answer.
I learned from reading this section that poor change control is a common cause of project errors. The CMBoK represents one of the best resources for the professional Change Manager and those organisations seeking to improve their change management capability. In addition, COBok contains six key competency areas: Leadership, Communication, Application, Competence, Authority and Standardization.
The model described here is a composite of several good practices and has six critical capability areas:
1.Leadership—Sponsoring the institutionalization of change management; demonstrable senior management engagement in the application of this discipline; and defining business rules, policies and procedures, and ensuring compliance with them.
2.Communications—Establishing a culture that recognizes the value of change management, that the organization shares a common definition of what change management is, and that its use is regularly evaluated and improved.
3.Application—Making resources available for the practice of change management and defining those areas and/or functions where a common approach is mandatory, aiming for uniformity in practices and tools.
4.Competencies—Providing training and documentation, encouraging interchanges between experienced practitioners and learners, ensuring project teams collaborate and share change management knowledge.
5.Authorities—Change management policies and procedures define the approval mechanisms for proposed changes depending on the criticality, complexity and impact of the proposed change. This should also provide clear definitions of the minimum requirements for segregation of duties (SoD).
6.Standardization—Aiming to have a standard approach to change management and a standard set of tools to support it, integrating the tools with project delivery processes, and ensuring that expertise and advice on change management can be readily accessed and shared.
This article is mainly about the change management. I learn from the example that a small change in a large project could cause severe problems. Therefore, change management is necesssary. It says that we can aduit change management through 6 perspectives: leadership, communications, application, competencies, authorities and standardization.
Dear professor, the following is my answer, please check,thanks
Here’s what I learned:
Leadership: Without proper leadership, any project or application is doomed to failure. When you think about an IT project, you tend to overlook the importance of leadership because you think IT’s all in the code. Personally, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that you don’t need IT experts to lead your projects, as long as they have a basic understanding of how things work.
Communication: You must be able to build a culture that understands the importance of change management. A software project really never gets done. Your employees must be willing to be alert to potential problems and act on requests for change.
Application: Of course, if these changes are not actually applied correctly, everything else will be wasted. Practices and tools need to be aligned.
Competence: You must make sure that your team is competent. There should be proper training and documentation in place so that your team members can perform their duties properly
Authority: There should be a formal process for requesting changes and minimum requirements for separation of duties
Standardization: These processes may not be automated, but should be standardized as much as possible so that they can be easily accessed and shared.
Hello Professor,
This is what I learned from ISACA “Auditors and Large Software Projects, Part 3″
Six critical capability areas:
1. Leadership
-sponsoring the institutionalization of change
management
-demonstrable senior management engagement in the application of this discipline
defining business rules, policies and procedures
-ensuring compliance with them
2. Communications
establishing a culture
-that recognizes the value of change management
-that the organization shares a common definition of what change management is
-that its use is regularly evaluated and improved
3. Application
-making resources available for the practice of change management
-defining those areas and/or functions where a common approach is mandatory
-aiming for uniformity in practices and tools
4. Competencies
-providing training and documentation
-encouraging interchanges between experienced practitioners and learners
-ensuring project teams collaborate and share change management knowledge
5. Authorities
-change management policies and procedures
-define the approval mechanisms for proposed changes depending on the criticality, complexity and impact of the proposed change
-provide clear definitions of the minimum requirements for segregation of duties (SoD).
6. Standardization
-aiming to have a standard approach to change management and a standard set of tools to support it
-integrating the tools with project delivery processes
-ensuring that expertise and advice on change management can be readily accessed and shared
Thank you
This article focuses on auditing how the inevitable changes to the project are managed and drew a conclusion that poor change control is a frequent cause of projects going wrong.
The model CMBoK offered is a composite of several good practices and has six critical capability areas for practitioners and auditors: Leadership, Communications, Application, Competencies, Authorities and Standardization.
There is a wild recognition that everybody in the project team wants things to go smoothly and no accidents or failures at all. But reality is harsh. Auditors’ effort to find troubles always counts.And their courage and integrity are valuable.
There is a somewhat different audit perspective on change management, in particular on capability areas and their maturity levels.
The model is a composite of several good practices and has six critical capability areas: (1) Leadership; (2) Communications; (3)Application; (4) Competencies; (5) Authorities; (6) Standardization.
Each of these headings can be split into individual lines of audit and their maturity assessed and then summarized in a table. The goal is to reach levels 4 and 5.
AUDITING CHANGE CONTROL PROCESSES
There is no point in attempting to duplicate the set of
excellent documents of which these are just a small sample:
• Change Control Audit Program and Internal Control
Questionnaire5
• Change Management Audit/Assurance Program6
• “Change Management”7
guidelines from the Internal Audit
Office, University of Queensland, Australia
Among other sources, there is a Change Management Body
of Knowledge (CMBoK)8
that has valuable guidelines for
practitioners and auditors. CMBoK also covers organizational
change and emergency changes; the latter appears rarely in
projects, but is common in IT operations.
Here a somewhat different audit perspective on change
management, in particular on capability areas and their
maturity levels, is presented.
The model described here is a composite of several good
practices and has six critical capability areas:
• Leadership—Sponsoring the institutionalization of change
management; demonstrable senior management engagement
in the application of this discipline; and defining business rules,
policies and procedures, and ensuring compliance with them
• Communications—Establishing a culture that recognizes
the value of change management, that the organization
shares a common definition of what change management is,
and that its use is regularly evaluated and improved
• Application—Making resources available for the practice
of change management and defining those areas and/or
functions where a common approach is mandatory, aiming
for uniformity in practices and tools
• Competencies—Providing training and documentation,
encouraging interchanges between experienced practitioners
and learners, ensuring project teams collaborate and share
change management knowledge
• Authorities—Change management policies and procedures
define the approval mechanisms for proposed changes
depending on the criticality, complexity and impact of the
proposed change. This should also provide clear definitions of
the minimum requirements for segregation of duties (SoD).
• Standardization—Aiming to have a standard approach to
change management and a standard set of tools to support
it, integrating the tools with project delivery processes, and
ensuring that expertise and advice on change management
can be readily accessed and shared
Each of these headings can be split into individual lines of
audit and their maturity assessed and then summarized in a
table similar to the one shown in figure 1. The goal is to reach
levels 4 and 5.
Hello, professor
Here is my answer:
I learned the six critical capability areas from ISACA “Auditors and Large Software Projects, Part 3” . They are Leadership, Communications, Application, Competencies, Authorities, and Standardization. Capability areas are somewhat different audit perspective on change management. Learning capability areas could help me give more professional suggestions to senior management.
Poor change control is a frequent cause of projects going wrong.
There is a somewhat different audit perspective on change management, in particular on capability areas and their maturity levels. The model described here is a composite of several good practices and has six critical capability areas: (1) Leadership; (2) Communications; (3) Application; (4) Competencies; (5) Authorities; and (6) Standardization. Each of these headings can be split into individual lines of audit and their maturity assessed and then summarized in a table.
Hi professor,
here is my answer:
What I can see from the reading ‘Auditors and Large Software Projects, Part 3’ is that the way Auditors can prevent project failure. It is well known that the successful completion of a project requires a very complex process. From project selection, initiation, planning, start-up and final maintenance updates, each step involves a great deal of risk. Therefore, how to avoid the failure of a project is a serious concern for business managers. Large projects often have cost overruns, time delays, poor results or even die halfway through. This article discusses the business case, project risk analysis and requirements definition in the early stages of a project. After a number of updates and changes, we found that even when everyone’s goals were aligned, the project was working as expected, and everything was perfect in terms of risk management and project governance, the project broke down and the IS/IT issues in the business remained. In the end, we found that a big reason for project failure was that change management was not practiced as much as it should be and that issues were raised and corrected in a timely manner.
Hello professor
Here is my answer
The challenge is getting people to comply with this policy for all changes to configurations, systems, application software, access rights and system privileges, and project plans. The usual reaction is to criticize, object and obstruct the initiative (despite briefings and explanations of the advantages of implementing this practice). Examples of objections include: “I have been doing this work for 20 years and I know what I am doing—I do not need more bureaucracy.” Or, “UNIX programmers do not work like this.”
Auditors who find that change management is not practiced as well as it ought to be should remind their audit that those who go around looking for trouble usually find it. Thus, it is important to have the courage to raise the issue with senior management and the audit committee.
Poor change control leads to firefighting in operational activities and problems
in software development.
Since the change management life cycle is straightforward, it is not difficult to buy or design a suitable application (there are several commercial offerings for the reader to explore). However, implementing such a system without a change management policy is pointless. For large software, changing a small control can cause a nasty problem or even a pause.
For large software, auditors should focus on the following areas:
1. Leadership
2.Communications
3.Application
4. Competencies
5. Authorities
6.Standardization
And there is a profiling tools which named Sample Maturity Table, each of these headings can be split into individual lines ofaudit and their maturity assessed and then summarized in the Sample Maturity Table. The goal is to reach levels 4 and 5.
The third portion of ISACA, in my opinion, focuses on a very important subject for managers: large software projects. The following are the main points discussed: why some projects are extremely expensive, and why some projects fail to meet their objectives in the end. The previous sections highlighted some essential aspects that are closely related to the software’s processing to ensure that the objectives are met. This part, on the other hand, focuses on how to manage any system modifications that are unavoidable. This is crucial for project managers, because poor change control methods have always been the cause of project failure.
Hello professor ,Here is my answer:
Auditors can prevent project failure. It is well known that the successful completion of a project requires a very complex process. From project selection, initiation, planning, start-up and final maintenance updates, each step involves a great deal of risk. Therefore, how to avoid the failure of a project is a serious concern for business managers. Large projects often have cost overruns, time delays, poor results or even die halfway through.
The model described here is a composite of several good practices and has six critical capability areas: (1) Leadership; (2) Communications; (3) Application; (4) Competencies; (5) Authorities; and (6) Standardization. Each of these headings can be split into individual lines of audit and their maturity assessed and then summarized in a table.
The auditor should review the stages through which the functionality and features that the system should deliver were developed and report the appropriate findings. What should go into a requirements definition is well defined elsewhere, but this does not mean it actually happens. Nonetheless, the auditor should give particular attention to the sections in the requirements definition that address key system controls, such as measures to ensure segregation of duties (SoD); the methods for granting and controlling privileges including role-based access controls; and management of superuser rights, logs, and audit trails.
Implementing a system without a change management policy is pointless.
The challenge is getting people to comply with this policy for all changes to configurations, systems, application software, access rights and system privileges, and project plans.
Chang management body of knowledge (CMBoK) that has valuable guidelines for practitioners and auditors
Six critical capability areas:
1. leadership; 2. communications; 3. Application; 4. competencies; 5. authorities; 6. standardization
Level 1: Nonexistent or ad hoc
Level 2: Change management is applied to isolated situations, but not with consistent practices.
Level 3: Change management is applied to multiple projects and/ or operational activities. Good practices are identified and shared.
Level 4: Organizational standards for change management include common approaches and tools.
Level 5: Organizational competency—change management becomes part of the organization’s way of doing things
The goal is to reach levels 4 and 5.
Can Auditors Prevent Project Failure?
This column focuses on a serious concern to business managers: What causes large software projects to have huge cost and timescale overruns and/or fail to meet expectations or, at worst, be abandoned before completion?
1. Change Management
2. Auditing Change Control Processes
Hello professor, here is my answer.
I learned from reading this section that poor change control is a common cause of project errors. The CMBoK represents one of the best resources for the professional Change Manager and those organisations seeking to improve their change management capability. In addition, COBok contains six key competency areas: Leadership, Communication, Application, Competence, Authority and Standardization.
Dear professor,
Here is my answer:
The model described here is a composite of several good practices and has six critical capability areas:
1.Leadership—Sponsoring the institutionalization of change management; demonstrable senior management engagement in the application of this discipline; and defining business rules, policies and procedures, and ensuring compliance with them.
2.Communications—Establishing a culture that recognizes the value of change management, that the organization shares a common definition of what change management is, and that its use is regularly evaluated and improved.
3.Application—Making resources available for the practice of change management and defining those areas and/or functions where a common approach is mandatory, aiming for uniformity in practices and tools.
4.Competencies—Providing training and documentation, encouraging interchanges between experienced practitioners and learners, ensuring project teams collaborate and share change management knowledge.
5.Authorities—Change management policies and procedures define the approval mechanisms for proposed changes depending on the criticality, complexity and impact of the proposed change. This should also provide clear definitions of the minimum requirements for segregation of duties (SoD).
6.Standardization—Aiming to have a standard approach to change management and a standard set of tools to support it, integrating the tools with project delivery processes, and ensuring that expertise and advice on change management can be readily accessed and shared.
This article is mainly about the change management. I learn from the example that a small change in a large project could cause severe problems. Therefore, change management is necesssary. It says that we can aduit change management through 6 perspectives: leadership, communications, application, competencies, authorities and standardization.
Dear professor, the following is my answer, please check,thanks
Here’s what I learned:
Leadership: Without proper leadership, any project or application is doomed to failure. When you think about an IT project, you tend to overlook the importance of leadership because you think IT’s all in the code. Personally, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that you don’t need IT experts to lead your projects, as long as they have a basic understanding of how things work.
Communication: You must be able to build a culture that understands the importance of change management. A software project really never gets done. Your employees must be willing to be alert to potential problems and act on requests for change.
Application: Of course, if these changes are not actually applied correctly, everything else will be wasted. Practices and tools need to be aligned.
Competence: You must make sure that your team is competent. There should be proper training and documentation in place so that your team members can perform their duties properly
Authority: There should be a formal process for requesting changes and minimum requirements for separation of duties
Standardization: These processes may not be automated, but should be standardized as much as possible so that they can be easily accessed and shared.
Hello Professor,
This is what I learned from ISACA “Auditors and Large Software Projects, Part 3″
Six critical capability areas:
1. Leadership
-sponsoring the institutionalization of change
management
-demonstrable senior management engagement in the application of this discipline
defining business rules, policies and procedures
-ensuring compliance with them
2. Communications
establishing a culture
-that recognizes the value of change management
-that the organization shares a common definition of what change management is
-that its use is regularly evaluated and improved
3. Application
-making resources available for the practice of change management
-defining those areas and/or functions where a common approach is mandatory
-aiming for uniformity in practices and tools
4. Competencies
-providing training and documentation
-encouraging interchanges between experienced practitioners and learners
-ensuring project teams collaborate and share change management knowledge
5. Authorities
-change management policies and procedures
-define the approval mechanisms for proposed changes depending on the criticality, complexity and impact of the proposed change
-provide clear definitions of the minimum requirements for segregation of duties (SoD).
6. Standardization
-aiming to have a standard approach to change management and a standard set of tools to support it
-integrating the tools with project delivery processes
-ensuring that expertise and advice on change management can be readily accessed and shared
Thank you
This article focuses on auditing how the inevitable changes to the project are managed and drew a conclusion that poor change control is a frequent cause of projects going wrong.
The model CMBoK offered is a composite of several good practices and has six critical capability areas for practitioners and auditors: Leadership, Communications, Application, Competencies, Authorities and Standardization.
There is a wild recognition that everybody in the project team wants things to go smoothly and no accidents or failures at all. But reality is harsh. Auditors’ effort to find troubles always counts.And their courage and integrity are valuable.
There is a somewhat different audit perspective on change management, in particular on capability areas and their maturity levels.
The model is a composite of several good practices and has six critical capability areas: (1) Leadership; (2) Communications; (3)Application; (4) Competencies; (5) Authorities; (6) Standardization.
Each of these headings can be split into individual lines of audit and their maturity assessed and then summarized in a table. The goal is to reach levels 4 and 5.
AUDITING CHANGE CONTROL PROCESSES
There is no point in attempting to duplicate the set of
excellent documents of which these are just a small sample:
• Change Control Audit Program and Internal Control
Questionnaire5
• Change Management Audit/Assurance Program6
• “Change Management”7
guidelines from the Internal Audit
Office, University of Queensland, Australia
Among other sources, there is a Change Management Body
of Knowledge (CMBoK)8
that has valuable guidelines for
practitioners and auditors. CMBoK also covers organizational
change and emergency changes; the latter appears rarely in
projects, but is common in IT operations.
Here a somewhat different audit perspective on change
management, in particular on capability areas and their
maturity levels, is presented.
The model described here is a composite of several good
practices and has six critical capability areas:
• Leadership—Sponsoring the institutionalization of change
management; demonstrable senior management engagement
in the application of this discipline; and defining business rules,
policies and procedures, and ensuring compliance with them
• Communications—Establishing a culture that recognizes
the value of change management, that the organization
shares a common definition of what change management is,
and that its use is regularly evaluated and improved
• Application—Making resources available for the practice
of change management and defining those areas and/or
functions where a common approach is mandatory, aiming
for uniformity in practices and tools
• Competencies—Providing training and documentation,
encouraging interchanges between experienced practitioners
and learners, ensuring project teams collaborate and share
change management knowledge
• Authorities—Change management policies and procedures
define the approval mechanisms for proposed changes
depending on the criticality, complexity and impact of the
proposed change. This should also provide clear definitions of
the minimum requirements for segregation of duties (SoD).
• Standardization—Aiming to have a standard approach to
change management and a standard set of tools to support
it, integrating the tools with project delivery processes, and
ensuring that expertise and advice on change management
can be readily accessed and shared
Each of these headings can be split into individual lines of
audit and their maturity assessed and then summarized in a
table similar to the one shown in figure 1. The goal is to reach
levels 4 and 5.
Hello, professor
Here is my answer:
I learned the six critical capability areas from ISACA “Auditors and Large Software Projects, Part 3” . They are Leadership, Communications, Application, Competencies, Authorities, and Standardization. Capability areas are somewhat different audit perspective on change management. Learning capability areas could help me give more professional suggestions to senior management.
Poor change control is a frequent cause of projects going wrong.
There is a somewhat different audit perspective on change management, in particular on capability areas and their maturity levels. The model described here is a composite of several good practices and has six critical capability areas: (1) Leadership; (2) Communications; (3) Application; (4) Competencies; (5) Authorities; and (6) Standardization. Each of these headings can be split into individual lines of audit and their maturity assessed and then summarized in a table.
Hi professor,
here is my answer:
What I can see from the reading ‘Auditors and Large Software Projects, Part 3’ is that the way Auditors can prevent project failure. It is well known that the successful completion of a project requires a very complex process. From project selection, initiation, planning, start-up and final maintenance updates, each step involves a great deal of risk. Therefore, how to avoid the failure of a project is a serious concern for business managers. Large projects often have cost overruns, time delays, poor results or even die halfway through. This article discusses the business case, project risk analysis and requirements definition in the early stages of a project. After a number of updates and changes, we found that even when everyone’s goals were aligned, the project was working as expected, and everything was perfect in terms of risk management and project governance, the project broke down and the IS/IT issues in the business remained. In the end, we found that a big reason for project failure was that change management was not practiced as much as it should be and that issues were raised and corrected in a timely manner.
Hello professor
Here is my answer
The challenge is getting people to comply with this policy for all changes to configurations, systems, application software, access rights and system privileges, and project plans. The usual reaction is to criticize, object and obstruct the initiative (despite briefings and explanations of the advantages of implementing this practice). Examples of objections include: “I have been doing this work for 20 years and I know what I am doing—I do not need more bureaucracy.” Or, “UNIX programmers do not work like this.”
Auditors who find that change management is not practiced as well as it ought to be should remind their audit that those who go around looking for trouble usually find it. Thus, it is important to have the courage to raise the issue with senior management and the audit committee.
Poor change control leads to firefighting in operational activities and problems
in software development.
Since the change management life cycle is straightforward, it is not difficult to buy or design a suitable application (there are several commercial offerings for the reader to explore). However, implementing such a system without a change management policy is pointless. For large software, changing a small control can cause a nasty problem or even a pause.
For large software, auditors should focus on the following areas:
1. Leadership
2.Communications
3.Application
4. Competencies
5. Authorities
6.Standardization
And there is a profiling tools which named Sample Maturity Table, each of these headings can be split into individual lines ofaudit and their maturity assessed and then summarized in the Sample Maturity Table. The goal is to reach levels 4 and 5.
The third portion of ISACA, in my opinion, focuses on a very important subject for managers: large software projects. The following are the main points discussed: why some projects are extremely expensive, and why some projects fail to meet their objectives in the end. The previous sections highlighted some essential aspects that are closely related to the software’s processing to ensure that the objectives are met. This part, on the other hand, focuses on how to manage any system modifications that are unavoidable. This is crucial for project managers, because poor change control methods have always been the cause of project failure.
Hello professor ,Here is my answer:
Auditors can prevent project failure. It is well known that the successful completion of a project requires a very complex process. From project selection, initiation, planning, start-up and final maintenance updates, each step involves a great deal of risk. Therefore, how to avoid the failure of a project is a serious concern for business managers. Large projects often have cost overruns, time delays, poor results or even die halfway through.
The model described here is a composite of several good practices and has six critical capability areas: (1) Leadership; (2) Communications; (3) Application; (4) Competencies; (5) Authorities; and (6) Standardization. Each of these headings can be split into individual lines of audit and their maturity assessed and then summarized in a table.
BR
Yidi Xu
The auditor should review the stages through which the functionality and features that the system should deliver were developed and report the appropriate findings. What should go into a requirements definition is well defined elsewhere, but this does not mean it actually happens. Nonetheless, the auditor should give particular attention to the sections in the requirements definition that address key system controls, such as measures to ensure segregation of duties (SoD); the methods for granting and controlling privileges including role-based access controls; and management of superuser rights, logs, and audit trails.
Implementing a system without a change management policy is pointless.
The challenge is getting people to comply with this policy for all changes to configurations, systems, application software, access rights and system privileges, and project plans.
Chang management body of knowledge (CMBoK) that has valuable guidelines for practitioners and auditors
Six critical capability areas:
1. leadership; 2. communications; 3. Application; 4. competencies; 5. authorities; 6. standardization
Level 1: Nonexistent or ad hoc
Level 2: Change management is applied to isolated situations, but not with consistent practices.
Level 3: Change management is applied to multiple projects and/ or operational activities. Good practices are identified and shared.
Level 4: Organizational standards for change management include common approaches and tools.
Level 5: Organizational competency—change management becomes part of the organization’s way of doing things
The goal is to reach levels 4 and 5.