Audit

An audit aims at ensuring that the IT activities of a company or an administration are conform to the rules and general professional usage, also known as ‘good practices’.

It tackles various IT domains such as IT function, IT studies, IT projects, operational processes, IT security…
An IT audit’s goal is to evaluate the IT level of maturity in a company.

The auditor will observe the audited domain, analyse observations, question auditees and, based on observations, they will judge the audited operational domain according to renown referentials such as :

CobiT : Control Objectives for Information and related Technology. It’s the prime referential for IT auditors,
Val IT helps evaluate the creation of added value per project or per project portfolio,
Risk IT is used to enhance risk control related to IT,
CobiT and Applications Controls.
ISO 27002 which is a good practice code in the IT security management field,
CMMi : Capability Maturity Model integration which is an evaluation process of the IT project’s management quality,
ITIL which is a collection of good practices concerning IT services support level.

Project owner assistant

The project owner assistant is dedicated to helping the project owner in the definition, the management and the actual operation of the project as lead by the project manager.
The assistant’s role is to counsel and suggest, as the project owner remains the one making decisions.
The project coordination is facilitated by the assistant who allows the project owner to fulfill their obligations as project’s prime manager.

The project owner assistant’s tasks are as follows:

• To participate in the definition of strategic goals and functional and technical needs in regards to the needs of the project owner. Defining the needs is a specific and strategic task that can be organized as a specific mission separated from the actual Project Owner Assisting mission.
• To identify the constraints and quality requirements according to the user’s expectations,
• To identify the organizational impacts within the project;
• To assess the feasibility of the project implementation in all its aspects (organizational, legal, budgetary, planning and resources).
• To recommend and help choosing the best solution and potential suppliers
• To guarantee both coordination and management throughout the whole project ;
• To control and take delivery of finished work from the prime contractor, its subcontractors if any, right from the preliminary study phases and drafting of the requirements, until the finished works records.

Project owner

The project owner is responsible for the efficiency and working practices for the IT organization. That position is about requiring from an internal and/or external project manager the products (equipment, software, services and solutions) needed to achieve the mission.
The project owner is the one commissioning the work.

At a business level, the project ownership consists in:

• Describing the needs, specifications,
• Establishing the funding and the general planning of the project.
• Providing to the project manager all functional specifications (“business model”) and validating functional acceptance of the product.
• Coordinating project steps between business users and the project manager.
• Being in charge of the general project guidance,
• Adapting functional goals in case of delays in order to meet delivery date or workforce.

At a more general company level, coordinated project owners act as the main decision maker, reporting to the general director and carry out the following tasks :

• specify general requirements, amending them when needed,
• supervise the project manager’s handling of projects portfolio,
• identify, with the executive management’s help, legal issues that may arise,
• participate to the information system security policy,
• control the execution by the project manager of suppliers’ outsourcing contracts,
• In coordination with the project manager,
• oversees the urbanization tasks in the information system.