Process audits

This is a topic that is very close to my heart as I have had a lot of work done with the Quality groups in my organizations. My answer is that it depends on the project and how strenuous it he process audit of the organization. The idea of an process audit is to ensure that the project does not have process gaps and proceeds smoothly. With this in mind, any critical project of a unique nature should definitely have regular process audits with a quarterly lightweight audit and a yearly once full go through audit. But if the project is a routine one that is being done with a routine customer, then I would think an annual lightweight audit should suffice, until the project sets off some alarms in terms of slippage or budget. Most QA departments tend to go heavy on processes and want to have as frequent audits as possible. But as project managers we need to understand that every audit is a cost to the project in one way or another and we need to weight the pay off vs. the risks of having the audit and balance it right. But as you are in a PMO and would probably like to put in place a process that is not subjective, I would recommend that break your projects into two or three categories based on the projects that your company works on and based on the characteristics of the category decide the frequency and mode of audit.

Kindly note, more audits do not guarantee more success, but if you have good auditors, the possibility to identify issues is increased.