Barb,
Good analogy, auditing being an art. Now how to make it a 'science' and effective to boot!
Brenda,
Good advice from Barb's corner. I always set up the auditors needing improvement with those who have a good understanding of auditing and do a good job at it, and for the most part, I have seen improvement. We had a discussion a few months ago within the forum on Auditing for effectiveness which I can associate with auditor effectiveness. Internal Auditing programs are difficult tasks for most folks, especially in their infancy. Many are "volunteered" and have a bad taste of it right of the bat. So how can you improve effectiveness (Areas to focus on)? With the questions I asked in my first post, you must determine all the obstacles and remove them; the good points, exploit them a bit too. To Barb's point; you will not be able to remove them all, so concentrate on the vital few (80/20 rule). What I do, I test my internal auditors on their knowledge of auditing, some questions on the ISO standard, to identify the weak areas. These I target as part of their on-going training. I have also noticed as folks begin to better understand the process, the auditing task is viewed less like a sentence. Improvement on understanding, length of auditing time, and reporting of audit results. Better all around.
I also question the effectiveness of your external training source. They should know about some of the traditional obstacles and work to remove them (i.e. How many folks here were VOLUNTEERED? and work to improve their attitude/perspective). You may want to see Barb on this point.
This is a longer term project. Speeding up the process can be accomplished with understanding the pros and cons with your auditors and audit program. So determine your specific "focus areas", address them, and continually improve the process.
Regards,
Kevin