Independent assurance

ADFA Canberra UNSW

Assurance services provide organisations with information to ease decision-making, navigate potential risks as well as identify opportunities for improvement. Our independent assurance services include project and program reviews, technical and engineering risk assessments and business and innovation assessments.

What to expect 

We provide comprehensive and independent assurance to senior management and project/program managers. 

These structured assessments focus on project management, technical, business and innovation aspects of capability development or acquisition activities. 

The assessments can be undertaken to support decision-making at any level and at any point throughout the life cycle.

Explore

  • We host a variety of facilitated workshops, including Pre-Smart Buyer Workshops.

    The workshops enable efficient and rigorous definition of needs, requirements and related information for:

    • Project-level:
      • Joint Capability Needs Statements (JCNS)
      • Operational and Support Intent (OSI) tailored to expectations
      • Description of Requirement (DOR
      • Operational Concept Documents (OCD)
      • Function and Performance Specifications (FPS)
    • Program-level:
      • Program Integrating Operational Concept (PIOC)
      • Umbrella/Program Operational Concept Documents
      • Program Strategies

    In each workshop, the CSC uses a structured methodology based on contemporary analysis, modelling, and decision-making methods.

    Our workshop format fosters a supportive and collaborative environment for stakeholders, saving time and resources. Workshops can last between one to three days and are tailored to the particular program or project.

    Workshop activities include preparation, facilities, use of requirements, capture and decision-support tools, catering, and facilitators with deep experience in Defence across different environmental domains and output documents or analyses as required.

  • The risk assessment service focuses on analysing technical and engineering risks associated with capability development and acquisition.

    These risk assessments can range from high level and short duration analyses to more comprehensive assessments dependant on the complexity and scale of the project/program. Independent advice on corresponding risk reduction activities is also available.

    Technical Implementation Risk Assessment (TIRA) systematically identify risks and inform the risk reduction work necessary to implement the proposal or future project activities.

    The TIRA focuses on system development activities including:

    • requirements determination
    • design
    • prototyping
    • manufacturing and production
    • software development
    • system integration (platform and
      capability integration)
    • validation and verification
    • test and evaluation.

    A TIRA can be conducted at various points across the capability life cycle and to the depth necessary.

  • Complete a Section 23 Commitment approval document.  This document should be in the form of a minute and include:

    1. Summary of work being undertaken.
    2. Background and justification.
    3. A summary of the procurement process being undertaken.
    4. Funding approval including Cost Centre and Account Codes being used, approval for each financial year involved and approval for ADFA Contract Management to use the cost centre and account code to raise a purchase order and to affect the transaction.

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