Post Implementation Audit

Performance Improvement and Continuous Learning Practice, Moravec and Associates consultants to management

Scrutinizing every aspect of an executed project, initiative, or transformation and acting on the lessons learned is foreboding. Sponsors and implementers fear that the results of the audit, if unfavorable, will be used against them.

Post implementation audits are an important way to avoid repeating costly mistakes, to learn from successes and mistakes and to sustain a learning effort. Companies, government agencies, private firms and professional businesses not performing post implementation audits are missing out on leveraging their money most effectively.

Critical success factors for performing a post execution audit:

Getting the right people involved
Timing the audit properly
Deploying an external professional facilitator
Collecting enough documentation to facilitate a smooth audit
Talking with each other, candidly and openly, about the results

Resistance to post implementation audits:

Fear of being scapegoated
Suck up too much time, resources
Desire to be rid of the project and move on

Front end preparation

If you have the implementation objectives, outcomes, approach, expected costs and anticipated benefits well defined up front, then when you come in to do the post-project audit, there are few surprises.
Performance dashboard: good performance measurements for consistent feedback on actions and to monitor progress and focus learning.

Steps toward a successful post implementatio audit

Long before the post execution analysis begins, write up a clear business case that delineates and breaks down the cost of the project, the soft and hard benefits, the expected return on investment and when the return on investment is fully achieved.
Keep scrupulous records of all the changes (change orders) made to the project, initiative or program.
Identify the members of the audit team.
Schedule a kick-off post audit meeting to identify all the logistics to perform the audit.
Review the business case, the initial scope of work and all the change orders. Around the same time schedule interviews with key management and the workforce. Also survey implementation and support team members to find out how well they think the various measures of success are met. Test the installed process, initiative, program, transformation and its controls. Engage the finance department in a 'payoffs' review.
Compare audit findings with the business case. Identify what went well, what didn't and why. Determine how you can address what didn't go well in future implementations. Disseminate all lessons learned and recommendations:
Leveraging organizational intellectual capital.Perform follow up actions to achieve or surpass outcomes.

Moravec & Associates Management Consulting Services