Project Assurance

"How do I successfully deliver the benefits of my IT related projects and programmes?"

IT enables many business transformation projects. The success of these programmes depends on the delivery of your IT programme. However, our research shows that a high proportion of IT programmes continue to fail.

We will work with you (CEO, CFO, and CIO) throughout the lifecycle of your IT transformation programme to help:

  • Help you understand your requirements
  • To support you in designing the most appropriate technology solution
  • Select the most appropriate parties to deliver the technical elements of the programme
  • Construct and validate their business case
  • Design the delivery programme so that the programme is set up to succeed
  • Manage the programme to deliver the target business outcomes
  • Maximise the business benefits
  • Reduce the risk of failure

BDO’s methodology focuses on the five layers that provide the key foundations for every project. We can tailor our approach to meet your specific requirements, with all or some of the layers being in-scope to review:

Program Governance: How a project is set up will have a strong bearing on the outcomes.  Our methodology will evaluate the key attributes required at this stage, including stakeholder engagement, steering committee structure, project sponsor appointment and role, project methodology to be used, governance model to be adopted, allocation of key roles and responsibilities, project objectives and milestones, key project risks, financial management, escalation protocols, use of Key Performance Indicators and Critical Success Factors. 

Project design and specification:  We assess how:

  • the technical, business and functional design and specifications have been developed to ensure appropriate representation exists from across the business. 
  • the design will meet the specification requirements (including system functionality) of the various stakeholders.
  • IT risks and controls (around data & report integrity, access management, interfaces) were considered

Project Management: We evaluate the project management fundamentals to ensure they are appropriate (for example, project risk management, financial management, resource loaded planning, communication strategy, managing project change, quality assurance, project documentation, recruitment of deep technical skills).

Testing: Ahead of the testing phase for the project, we assess the quality of the testing plans proposed and, if required, we will extend the fieldwork to evaluate the quality of the testing documentation.

Training: It is important that all stakeholders are appropriately trained. We assess the effectiveness of the training planned and then delivered.

Data Migration: Moving the data into the new environment is important to the overall integrity and quality of the data being used post-go-live. We assess the quality of the processes to extract, transform and load the data into the new environment.  This phase will also evaluate the adequacy of the data privacy controls in place as data is migrated.