Low-overhead Project Audits

A lot of what I do is run alongside of projects and help guide and coach them to success.  In doing so, I am a huge fan of keeping the project team focused on delivering the project and want to keep overhead activities to a minimum.  When it comes to project audits, I've seen some pretty good audits that minimize overhead and provide good advice.  I've also seen some horrendous audits that take project teams away from direct activities conducted by inexperienced auditors that in the end provide absolutely no value to the project team. 

I recently viewed a youtube video put out by projectmanager.com on how to conduct a project audit.   The video outlines a low-overhead way to conduct audits that, when done by an experienced project manager, can be effective in helping flush out issues that could derail the project.  The one item that the video doesn't discuss that I always look for is management of the critical path in the project workplan.  Nine times out of ten I can stump a project manager when I ask the question "How many total slack days are there in your resource-leveled project plan's critical path?"  Remember to include critical path inspection in any audit you might do, or better still if someone has been assigned to audit your project, ask them if they know what the above statement means to determine if the auditor is worth his/her weight in salt.

Check out the video and see what you think.