What is an Audit?
Audit means an independent examination of a software product or processes to assess compliance with specifications, standards, contractual agreements, or other criteria.
The terminology, Audit in the field of software can relate to any of the following:
A software Quality Assurance, where the software is audited for quality
A software licensing audit, where a user of software is audited for licence compliance
A Physical Configuration Audit (PCA) is the formal examination to verify the configuration item's product baseline
Objectives of Audit:
The aim of a conducting software audit is to provide an independent evaluation of the software products and processes to applicable standards, guidelines, plans, and procedures against compliance.
Roles and Responsibilities of Formal Audit:
Manager: The manager decides on what needs to be reviewed and ensures that there is sufficient time allocated in the project plan for all of the required review activities. Managers do not usually get involved in the actual review process.
Moderator: The Moderator, also known as lead reviewer, reviews the set of documents. The moderator will make the final decision as whether or NOT to release an updated document.
Author: The author is the writer, who develops the document(s) to be reviewed. The author also takes responsibility for fixing any agreed defects.
Scribe/Recorder: The scribe attends the review meeting and documents all of the issues/defect/problems and open points that were identified during the meeting.