The short of itAudit work programs work because they require you to think about what you are going to do before you do it. They take away the stress of worrying how you should approach a certain audit issue for 90% of the time, because you have thought about it before your audit team was … Continue reading Why work programs work
Workpapers.com quadruple review, part I – The one week review
The short of itAt BTC, we recently selected workpapers.com as our web-based electronic workpaper solution. I will be writing about our experiences with this tool in four separate blog posts, over a period of about a year. This is the first one, about our the first week using workpaper.com. The solution is a promising one, … Continue reading Workpapers.com quadruple review, part I – The one week review
The external specialization fallacy
You can't oursource your core tasksThere are a couple of essential tasks you cannot outsource: If you're about the execute a coup d'etat, you can't bring in mercenaries in key roles or positions and assume you will remain in control; If you want to rule a market, you cannot have key product development and innovation … Continue reading The external specialization fallacy
New year
A quick note to everyone who has visited this blog in 2011. Thank you for your visit, and I hope to be able to entertain and inform you in 2012 as much as I hope I have in 2011.2011 was a year of curation and integrating several blogs in this new overarching blog. 2012 should … Continue reading New year
The Three Laws of Due Diligence
The emptiness of due diligenceLooking around in current day to day business, I see less and less evidence of due diligence in its core meaning. At least the core meaning I learned but mainly understood based on practical experience. The idea of due diligence has been replaced by a number of elaborate governance frameworks which … Continue reading The Three Laws of Due Diligence
Blogging New Year Resolutions 2012
It's that time of the year to make resolutions. As I have never made New Year's resolutions on blogging in my life, perhaps now is a good moment to start. I've decided to make resolutions on volume, content and quality. Here goes …VolumeI aim to post at least 100 new articles on the "Exploring the … Continue reading Blogging New Year Resolutions 2012
Managing my “Instapaper not yet read” guilt with ReadNow
"I could have read this months ago"Last July I sent a promising mac.appstorm article to my Instapaper queue. Its title? “ReadNow: Native Instapaper and Read it Later Management” I just recently read it … and after having read it, I acted on it immediately. But I could have acted on it at least five months … Continue reading Managing my “Instapaper not yet read” guilt with ReadNow
The opposite of a bad system – an internal auditor’s perspective
The opposite of a bad systemI recently read this statement, and I can't remember where I read it. It goes "The opposite of a bad system isn't chaos. It's a good system." The statement got me thinking about the fallacy inherent in the current thinking about the crisis and lessons learned from the internal audit … Continue reading The opposite of a bad system – an internal auditor’s perspective
Must read: “The dumbest idea in the world”
I don't usually link to articles where the author or referrer has done a great job explaining why the article or the post is relevant. This one comes by way of John Gruber at Daring Fireball and is a reference to a Forbes article on Roger Martin's new book, "Fixing the Game".It contains an excellent … Continue reading Must read: “The dumbest idea in the world”
Reducing the effort of risk based internal audit planning
Risk based internal audit planningThe IIA's standards require us to prepare a risk based internal audit planning. However, if risk assessment and management is not (yet) embedded in your organization, it requires a concerted effort from the auditees to provide you with the relevant information. Given this is not necessarily a priority to them, are … Continue reading Reducing the effort of risk based internal audit planning
Exploring The Black Box 