Conduct pre-implementation audits to determine if systems and programs under development will work as planned.

I am running a pre-implementation audit for the new inventory tracking program with go-live scheduled next month. Send the draft audit report to Helen, the IT project manager, and then to Marcus in Internal Audit for final sign-off, signers in that order. Before sending, verify the test scripts executed, list open defects with owner and severity, and confirm rollback criteria are documented.

Before I show this to Helen and Marcus, make the report easy to act on: put the critical defects and their business impact at the top, include a short pass/fail row for each key control test, link each failing test to the exact evidence file and timestamp, and highlight any gaps that mean we cannot meet the planned go-live date so the project manager can prioritize fixes.

During our pre-implementation run I found a recurring data-mapping mismatch that causes inventory counts to diverge between staging and reporting. Helen says developers think it is low risk, but finance says it will break month-end. I cannot tell whether this is a configuration oversight or a deeper design flaw. Should I push to delay go-live until it's fixed, or accept a compensating control for the first cycle? Recommend the likely diagnosis and the best next step.

Across three projects we keep being blindsided by the same class of integration defects during pre-implementation testing, and it costs us schedule credibility. What one process change will reduce these late surprises, and give a practical first action I can take with Helen and the dev leads this week.