How to Comply With Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404: Assessing the Effectiveness of Internal Control

4.1. Objective of Planning

There are two main objectives for project planning:

1. Prepare for key decisions. During your engagement, you will be required to make important judgments regarding:

   • The scope of your project: for example, the business units or divisions that will be tested, the controls that will be documented and tested, and so on

   • The types of procedures you will perform

     During the planning phase of the project, you will gather information to help you make broad, preliminary judgments on these matters. The knowledge you gain from gathering this information will provide you with the background necessary to make informed decisions as the engagement proceeds.

2. Organize the project team. You will want to perform your work as effectively and efficiently as possible. To accomplish this, you will need to create a project team with the required skills, knowledge, and experience to achieve the engagement objectives. The work of each team member will need to be defined and coordinated with other members.

Planning is an iterative process. The two objectives listed here are not performed just once at the beginning of the engagement and then forgotten about. Rather, they are revisited continuously throughout the project, as more information becomes available and the decisions you are required to make become more specific and narrowly focused.