Steps to understanding a process Gaining a clear understanding of the functioning of a process or how it aligns with tactical or strategic objectives of an organization is not necessarily the easiest challenge for an auditor. Often, the counterparts interviewed are not fully aware of either why they do what they do (lack of tactical … Continue reading Clarifying questions
Tag: internal audit
Regular expressions for internal auditors
Back to the past I still remember the time when we had to audit large data sets by hand. You may think that is a long time ago, but I'm talking about the mid to late 1990s. That was in my youth as an auditor. I remember spending hours waiting next to a large printer … Continue reading Regular expressions for internal auditors
Using Basecamp for internal audit documentation
Ah, old times! I was brought up as an internal auditor in a day and age when computer aided auditing was still to become mainstream. I know that dates me, but so be it. My first years of auditing consisted of performing audit tests as described in a paper work program. I was responsible for … Continue reading Using Basecamp for internal audit documentation
The secret to writing good recommendations
How recommendations are perceived "Irrelevant", "impossible to implement", "developed an ivory tower", "they want us to do what?" ... These are all quotes that internal auditors hear quite frequently when it comes to their recommendations. And sometimes those quotes are accurate. As internal auditors, we are often focused on auditing and on being as complete … Continue reading The secret to writing good recommendations
Questioning audit relevance
Asking the essential questions A question we almost never ask ourselves as chief audit executives or internal audit directors is how motivated our staff are to audit a certain area. The reason our teams may not be motivated is actually rather simple, but not easy to accept: in our audit preparations, we often fail to … Continue reading Questioning audit relevance
PRINCE2 for internal audit – the project brief or audit brief
A Quick Introduction As I mentioned before, my organization started with the introduction of PRINCE2. My internal audit department is making sure we are learning the lessons we need to learn. The best way to do that is to practice what we preach. So we're applying PRINCE2 to internal audit. If you are interested, you … Continue reading PRINCE2 for internal audit – the project brief or audit brief
PRINCE2 for internal audit – Starting up a project
Based on an internal audit recommendation, the organization I work for (my day-job, writing and blogging being my night-job so to speak) has decided to start implementing PRINCE2 for all its projects. Given we have about 200 concurrent projects, that is a challenge. I mentioned this was based on an internal audit recommendation, right? It … Continue reading PRINCE2 for internal audit – Starting up a project
The impact of confirmation bias on internal audit
What It Is Wikipedia defines confirmation bias as: ""a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses." As an internal auditor, confirmation bias is a risk. We may be too focused on proving our positions or our hypotheses we miss key information which may disprove our position. How It Influences Us … Continue reading The impact of confirmation bias on internal audit
Conducting a multi-location risk analysis for audit planning purposes in a small audit shop
The baseline As CAE of a small audit shop in a complex environment, I have to comply with the IIA standards like any other CAE. The performance standard for planning purposes is of course "2010 - Planning", which states that "The chief audit executive must establish risk-based plans to determine the priorities of the internal … Continue reading Conducting a multi-location risk analysis for audit planning purposes in a small audit shop
The impact of learned helplessness on audit recommendations
Learned helplessness in organisations has become an agent of the resistance Ron Ashkenas wrote a very interesting article on the HBR blog a while back: in "Learned helplessness in organisations" he addresses the "external" excuses that process owners manage to come up with in order not to change their process. To quote him: "This phenomenon … Continue reading The impact of learned helplessness on audit recommendations
Exploring The Black Box 