Appendix II: An Auditor’s Key Questions and Documents
Best Practice 1: Capturing All Activities
Key Questions
Is there an IMS for managing the entire program (not just a block, increment, or prime contractor)? Is the schedule defined at an appropriate level to ensure effective management?
Is the IMS maintained in scheduling software and linked to external, detailed project schedules?
How does management ensure the accuracy of reported schedule information? Do the government program management office and contractors have different scheduling software systems? If so, how is integrity preserved and verified when converting the schedule?
Does the IMS include government, contractor, and applicable subcontractor effort?
Does the schedule reflect the program WBS and does the WBS allow tracking key deliverables? Does every activity trace to an appropriate WBS element, and do the activities define how the deliverables will be produced? Does the schedule WBS map to the cost estimate WBS? Is there a WBS dictionary?
Are key milestones identified and are they consistent with the contract dates and other key dates management established in the baseline schedule?
Does the schedule have clear start and finish milestones? Are there too many milestones in relation to detail activities?
Are activities within the schedule easily traced to key documents and other information through activity or task codes? Are all contractor activities mapped to the contract statement of work (SOW) to ensure that all effort is accounted for in the schedule?
Are activity names unique and descriptive? Are activities phrased in verb-noun combinations (for example, “develop documentation”)? Are milestones named with verb-noun or noun-verb combinations (for example, “start project” or “project finished”)?
Are level-of-effort activities clearly marked?
Does the schedule include significant risk mitigation efforts as discrete activities? If not, how are they documented and tracked?
Key Documentation
Work breakdown structure (WBS) and dictionary
Statement of work (SOW), integrated master plan (IMP) and mission requirements, as applicable
SOW crosswalk to the WBS and schedule activities, as applicable
Contractor WBS to program WBS crosswalk
Schedule custom fields and activity codes dictionary and LOE field identification
Activity codes used to organize and filter the activities into categories as necessary to confirm a complete scope of work
Plans and documentation used for defining activities, such as the systems engineering plan, software development plan, risk management plan, and master test plan.
Likely Effects If Criteria Are Not Fully Met
If activities are missing from the schedule, then other best practices will not be met. If all activities are not accounted for, it is uncertain whether all activities are scheduled in the correct order, resources are properly allocated, missing activities will appear on the critical path, or a schedule risk analysis can account for all risk.
Failing to include all work for all deliverables, regardless of whether the deliverables are the responsibility of the government or contractor, can lead to program members’ incomplete understanding of the plan and its progress toward a successful conclusion.
If the schedule does not fully and accurately reflect the program, it will not be an appropriate basis for analyzing or measuring technical work accomplished and may result in unreliable completion dates, time extension requests, and delays.
If government work is not captured in the IMS, the program manager will be less able to plan all the work and minimize the risk of government-caused delays.
Because the schedule is used for coordination, missing elements will hinder coordination efforts, increasing the likelihood of disruption and delays.
If the schedule is not planned in sufficient detail, then opportunities for process improvement (for example, identifying redundant activities), what-if analysis, and risk mitigation will be missed.
A schedule that does not emanate from a single start milestone activity and terminate at a single finish milestone activity is not properly constructed and may produce an erroneous critical path.
LOE activities can interfere with the critical path unless they are clearly marked and represented as summary or hammock activities designed for the purpose.
Too many milestones in the schedule can mask the activities necessary to achieve key milestones and can prevent the proper recording of progress.
Schedules that are defined at too high a level may disguise risk that is inherent in lower-level activities. Conversely, schedules that have too much detail make it difficult to manage progress.
Unless the schedule is aligned to the program WBS, management cannot ensure that the total scope of work is accounted for within the schedule.
Repetitive naming of activities makes communication difficult between teams, particularly between team members who are responsible for updating and integrating multiple schedules.