High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD): Five Failures And Counting

Meredith and Mantel (2012) describe a project audit as a thorough examination of the management of a project, its methodology and procedures, its records, its properties, its budgets and expenditures, and its degree of completion (p. 525). I believe The Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD): Five Failures and Counting (B) case study was a project audit. None of the established milestones had been achieved on the THAAD program, so the project manager elected to have a project audit conducted to determine if the project was meeting its goal or objectives. The following issues were identified on the THAAD program that none of the milestones had been achieved, scheduling conflicts, inefficient testing conducted, testing time not allocated,
Go/no-go controls take the form of testing to see if some specific precondition has been met (Meredith and Mantel, 2012, p. 498). The go/no-go control process was utilized to evaluate whether the scope, budget, and schedule were adhered according to the program objectives. If the project manager had established specific milestones on the program many of the lessons learned could have been avoided, such as the scheduling conflicts, inefficient testing, and resource issues, but since the milestones were not stated or specifically spelled out the program failed to deliver the goods on the scheduled
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) conducted the investigative audit due to the many underlying issues with the program, but most identifiable reason was due to spending of billions of dollars on the program and the contractor or government has absolutely nothing substantive to show on the program. The GAO is an autonomous agency working for Congress that is responsible for investigating how U.S. tax dollars are spent (GAO, 2015). Since it was government monies being spent it was the best choice for an audit team. As far as the auditing team have the trust of the project team no more than any other team on an investigation. The project team being investigated is always on the defensive and not that they are uncooperative, but let’s say less than helpful. The auditing team will take on a defensive role as though they are being criticized and judged instead of looking at the project audit as a way to identify and learn from mistakes made on the