Re: Measurables for Document Control and Internal Audits
Dirk:
Dennis is a great guy with humugous experience of audits - external audits. Like many luminaries in the (ASQ) auditing world, there is a mushing together of the tools and techniques of external and internal audits. It can be seen all over the place. In principle they're very similar, but in practice, the audits are poles apart or should be.
Most of these metrics are for audit/auditors managers who have nothing better to do - and we have already established that in the main, most of these folks have a real daytime job.........
OK. Third party audits, measurements, managemnt concerns and fudged results. I'll just quote my experience to show how the metrics get affected as many earlier have said.
I was working for one of the largest and revered multinational CBs. We issued Observations, Non-critical NCRs and Critical NCRs as an feedback of our audits. Non-critical said ok, commit action, set it right . We will be back after a year and check it during surveillance. Critical said sorry, no certification till you set it right. Correct these and call us for a re-audit.
When I joined, auditors used to issue critical NCRs. Then the focus of the management (of the CB) shifted to increasing the customer base.
Metric of the branch managers was 'how many new certificates did you issue this quarter?' So, the critical NCRs dwindled and finally came to zero. They were now reworded and disguised as non-critical.
Next, the system of issuing non-critical NCRs was dropped by the CB (the foreign parent). Now we either had an Observation or an NCR.
NCR said re-audit, which the branch manager's metric won't allow. So, all NCRs got reworded as Observations. Even without assigning any metrics, these were inefficient audits.
Again, I shall repeat my contention that
if the measure for audit effectiveness is going to work at cross purposes with the measure for branch effectiveness, having both the measures is an invitation to chaos. In such a situation, branch effectiveness should prevail.
Thats what happened and many good auditors quit.:mg: Possibly
the metric amongst the list given by Dennis.
Internal auditors are subjected to much larger pulls and pressures. Why complicate their jobs by putting metrics on a part time function to be done by them? I can write separately on how they are alredy subject to many criss-crossing targets and doing a constant balancing act. If a simpler way out is found to measure the effectiveness and take the load off their head, it is for the good of the organisation.