Soft audit practice・Preparation 3: Pre-filling the checklist

20/01/202121/10/2021Audit for soft-Develop..

Prepare the audit checklist used for software development audit in advance

The actual software development audit is the work of confirming the specific work procedure and the result of the work for each check item in the audit checklist . Therefore, the audit checklist plays an important role.

Prior to the audit, send this audit checklist to the other company, fill in the answer column, and have it returned. The procedure for auditing is to look at the contents of the answer column filled in by the company to be audited, pick up the check items that are likely to have problems, and listen in detail on the day of the audit.

Select items in the audit checklist according to the purpose of the audit

The audit checklist that my father Gutara used at the time of software development audit will be introduced in detail in the article on practice and checklist (development process) , so if you are interested, please see that. In this article, we’ll show you what to do with the audit checklist in preparation for an audit.

I mentioned earlier that the audit checklist should be sent to the other company prior to the audit, but there is something to do before that. In line with the purpose of this audit, it is the task of deciding the areas to be focused on in the audit and selecting the items in the audit checklist accordingly . In short, the original audit checklist has a large number of items, so the task is to reduce the number of items by thinning out the number of items that can be audited within a fixed time.

The audit checklist is divided into four types according to the purpose of the audit: (1) development process, (2) required specifications, (3) testing, and (4) software technology. The total number of items is about 130, so it is not enough time to confirm all of them in one audit. Therefore, Gutara’s father was doing the selection or narrowing down of the check items (in short, thinning out) in two stages .

Furthermore, half in and half the second stage in the first stage of the check items thinning narrowed down to

First, before sending an audit checklist to the other company , narrow it down to about half according to the purpose of the audit . Next, while looking at the contents of the answer column filled in by the partner company, we narrowed it down to about half as items to be confirmed on the day of the audit.

I didn’t narrow down before sending it to the other company at the beginning, so I sent all the items of the audit checklist to the other company and asked them to fill in the answer column. However, when the number of items in the audit checklist exceeded 80, some troubles began to occur. The first item of the checklist has the answers written fairly firmly, but in the back, the answers are now lined up as if it is simple or easy, or rather omission. ..　

Well, if you try to write the answer column, you can understand that if there are too many items, you will not want to write in the middle. If Father Gutara was in a position to write the answer to this checklist , I think he would run out of energy along the way . Since such a thing continued, I decided to narrow down the number of items to have the other company write an answer so that it would fit in at most about 50 items.

Well, due to such circumstances, I first narrowed down the items of the audit checklist to about half, then sent the audit checklist to the other company and asked them to fill in the answer column.

Ask the other party to fill out the audit checklist in advance

The audit checklist, which has been narrowed down to about 50 items according to the purpose of the audit, will be sent by the other company about two weeks before the audit and will be asked to fill in the answers. Then, the audit checklist with the answers will be returned at least one week before the audit.

It’s best not to send the audit checklist too soon, and from my father Gutara’s experience, it was best about two weeks before the audit . I used to send it earlier to give myself more time to fill in, but the person at the other company who wrote the answer remembers the content of the answer I wrote on the day of the audit. However, I often come across a situation where it takes a long time to audit. Because of that, I think the best timing is about two weeks before the audit.

In addition, please attach specific materials ( the word confirmation is used in the auditing world ) to confirm the contents of the answer when filling out the form . Some materials may not be available outside the company, so in that case, the material will be shown at the other party’s office on the day of the audit, so write down what the name of the material is. Please leave it.

Items to be confirmed on the day of the audit are selected from the audit cell list items.

The audit checklist with the answers will be returned about one week before the audit. For the audit checklist returned , select the items to be confirmed on the day of the audit by looking at the contents of the answer column and its confirmation . At this stage, the items to be confirmed are further narrowed down to about half, and finally to about 20 to 25 items.

This is also a rule of thumb, but on the day of the audit, it takes about 15 minutes on average for each confirmation item . Since 20 items are 5 hours, it is necessary to narrow down to this number to complete the audit in one day.

If you read the answer column for each item, you can see the strengths and weaknesses of the other company for each item. Roughly speaking, I am good at the parts that are written in detail and concretely, and I am not good at the parts that are not easy to write. The main purpose of software development audits is to find “problems in the development process and development technology of the audited company" that affect the quality of software development, evaluate them, and request improvements. Therefore, you will need to pay attention to the weak points of the other company and confirm on the day of the audit.　

From this point of view, the items to be confirmed on the day of the audit are narrowed down to 20 to 25 items, and the preparation for the audit is completed.

Finally, a request for the audit environment to be prepared on the day of the audit

At the end of the audit plan, the contents to be prepared by the other company on the day of the audit are written. Generally, it is a work environment for confirming various materials for confirming the substance of software development and for advancing audits .

In the software development audit, we will proceed with the confirmation while showing the development practice of the development department. Specifically, you will be asked to show materials that cannot normally be taken outside the company, such as detailed work rules and worksheets, records of actual design documents and reviews, bug tracking systems and software release approval documents. Therefore, please prepare an environment where you can refer to such materials.

In addition, in order to proceed with the audit, the audit check sheet is projected on a projector to match the participants’ awareness of which item they are currently checking. A whiteboard is helpful when you have a bit of in-depth discussions with other managers or engineers during an audit. Regarding these work environments, we will inform you in advance of what you would like us to prepare in advance in the audit plan.

When the preparations are complete, it’s finally time for the audit

Up to this point, we have introduced the preparations to be made by the day of the software development audit using the contents of the audit plan, but have you seen the substance of the software development audit a little? From the next article, I will introduce how to proceed on the day of the audit and its points.