TCM 701 1

GERKINS PENSION SERVICES PART A

Dana Lasket was the PM of a project with the objective of determining the feasibility of moving a significant portion of Gerkins computing capacity to another geographical location. Project completion was scheduled for 28 weeks. Dana had the project team motivated, and at the end of the twentieth week, the project was on schedule. The next week, during a casual lunch conversation, Dana discovered that the vice-president of finance had serious doubts about the validity of the assumptions the team was using to decide which computers should be relocated.

Dana tried to convince him that he was wrong during two follow-up meetings, with no success. In fact, the more they talked, the more convinced the vice-president became that Dana was wrong. The project was too far along to change any assumptions without causing significant delays. In addition, the vice-president was likely to inherit the responsibility for implementing any approved plans for the new location. For those reasons, Dana felt it was essential to resolve the disagreement before the scheduled completion of the project. Dana requested a project auditor be assigned to audit the project, paying special attention to the assumptions made to identify the computers to be moved. Discussion Question: Is this a good use of the audit technique? Will it be helpful here? Why or why not?