What Should Your Technical Audit Look at First?

That is the kind of question I would use to start a technical audit.

There will be code to review, systems to inspect and tests to check. But first, agree on what the business needs to understand. Otherwise, you can end up with a long report and still not know what to fix first.

Take a payment. Recording the charge is only part of the job. The customer also needs access to what they bought. If that step fails, someone needs to notice and sort it out.

Following that whole story gives the audit a clear starting point. It also brings the people who handle the problem into the discussion, including support and finance.

A report might tell you there are missing tests or complicated parts of the code. That can be useful. But which ones matter most?

In the payment example, ask whether a failure could leave a paying customer without access. Does the team know when that happens? Can it correct the purchase without making the customer pay again?

Those questions help explain why a particular test or recovery step deserves attention. Without that connection, the founder has to guess how a list of technical issues affects the company.

Choose something the product needs to do and follow it all the way through. For a purchase, start when the customer pays and finish when they can use what they bought.

Find out which systems take part, what each records and what happens if a step is missed. Ask who puts it right.

Engineering may know the application. Support may know the workaround used when a customer calls. Finance may know which records need correcting. You need those pieces together to understand the whole job.

The customer made one purchase. They should not have to work out which system lost it.

Look at the checks behind that purchase. What happens if the payment goes through but access is not granted? What if the same request arrives twice? Can the team show how those cases are handled?

A written procedure is useful, but trying it can reveal missing steps. Use a suitable test environment when the check could affect customers or data.

Keep track of what the reviewer could not see. If there is no history of failed purchases, the report cannot tell you how often they happen. It can still explain the possible problem and suggest how to find out more.

Suppose the team cannot detect a failed purchase. A customer may have to contact support before anyone knows they paid but received nothing.

Now the finding is easier to discuss. You can ask whether it has happened before, how support handles it and what would help the team catch it sooner.

Do not turn missing information into a made-up estimate. If you do not know how often it happens or what it costs, leave that question open. A possible failure is worth investigating without inventing a loss figure.

This also helps you compare issues. A messy piece of code may be less urgent than a simple step that can fail without anyone noticing.

Before the audit starts, say what you need help with. Are you getting ready for a launch? Trying to understand repeated failures? Checking whether the code needs refactoring?

Choose the parts of the business that matter to that question. Include how the team releases changes and recovers when something goes wrong. Agree on what the reviewer can access and which checks can be carried out safely.

Ask the report to explain what was found, how it could affect the business and what the team should do next. It should also say what remains unknown.

Then go through the findings with the people who will do the work. Can they explain the recommendation? Does someone own it? How will they know it helped?

Following one purchase will not find every security problem, old dependency or shared system that needs attention. Keep the wider checks that make sense for the product. If they reveal a serious issue elsewhere, look at it.

Be clear about the kind of audit you are buying too. A general technical review is not the same as a penetration test or a compliance check. It cannot promise that the product will never fail.

The report should say what was covered, what was left out and what needs a closer look.

When the report arrives, go back to the question you started with. Do you understand what could go wrong and what the team has checked? Can you decide what needs attention first?

If all you have is a score and a list of issues, ask for the missing explanation.

You should come away knowing more about your product and what to do next.