A process audit evaluates whether established procedures, methods, and work instructions are being followed and whether they are effective for producing the required software quality outcomes. In software quality engineering, process audits focus on development, testing, configuration management, defect reporting, reviews, and other defined lifecycle activities. The purpose is to verify conformance to approved processes and identify opportunities for corrective action or improvement. An investigation of the entire quality management system is more closely related to a system audit. Verification that product characteristics are met describes a product audit. Reviewing the quality policy alone is too narrow. Therefore, the best description of a process audit is the evaluation of established procedures.

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