What is the best way to Improve an Internal Auditors Effectiveness?

  • Thread starter Brenda Mundroff
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Jackie Jolly

I was interested in the Power Point Document listed above but was unable to locate it. How could I go about this?
 

Marc

Fully vaccinated are you?
Leader
Contemporary thoughts on Improving Auditor Effectiveness?

Contemporary thoughts on Improving Auditor Effectiveness?

Do any of you 'oldies' have a copy of Don's files from way back when?
 

AndyN

Moved On
After a quick read of this thread (thanks for re-igniting it, Marc) I'm tempted to say that the auditors 'not getting it' could have been a result of trying to meet the 'independence' requirements for auditors. I've experienced this situation many times in the 20 or so years of training/coaching (internal) auditors. Often, someone is assigned to an audit who doesn't have any experience of the process, techniques, terminology etc and is totally overwhelmed. Furthermore, if the audit criteria is solely ISO 9001 (now), it is possible that the auditors were unfamiliar with the requirements and how they 'fit' the process being audited.
Just a few thoughts, I'll revisit this thread later.....

Andy
 

BradM

Leader
Admin
After a quick read of this thread (thanks for re-igniting it, Marc) I'm tempted to say that the auditors 'not getting it' could have been a result of trying to meet the 'independence' requirements for auditors. I've experienced this situation many times in the 20 or so years of training/coaching (internal) auditors. Often, someone is assigned to an audit who doesn't have any experience of the process, techniques, terminology etc and is totally overwhelmed. Furthermore, if the audit criteria is solely ISO 9001 (now), it is possible that the auditors were unfamiliar with the requirements and how they 'fit' the process being audited.
Just a few thoughts, I'll revisit this thread later.....

Andy

I think you hit a valuable point. So what do you recommend? Do you:
1. Try to recruit technical people and train as auditors?
2. Train the auditors in the process/technical?
3. Have a technical associate with them?

Or, do you run a combination of all three? Which one have you had the most success with?
 

SteelMaiden

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Trusted Information Resource
I've been doing a "competence" review after each audit. I use the results to plan refresher trainings, additional training audits, or just see where I need to sit down with someone and talk through any problems. I also make sure that I praise any positive results that I see, and doing the competency review gives me some "real" information to bring to the table. We've even gotten some good action items from the review.
 

AndyN

Moved On
I think you hit a valuable point. So what do you recommend? Do you:
1. Try to recruit technical people and train as auditors?
2. Train the auditors in the process/technical?
3. Have a technical associate with them?

Or, do you run a combination of all three? Which one have you had the most success with?

Possibly, none of the above.............:mg:
My belief is based on getting a number of issues squared away, first: -

The 'scope' and 'criteria' of each audit, in other words what is going to be audited and against what requirements?
Who is qualified/competent to do that audit?

I don't advocate using auditors who are 'from another department'. In most cases, I'd recommend using someone who has experienced the process they're auditing, as long as they don't audit their own work......This will enable any coaching to focus on the auditor's technique, rather than on their knowledge of the business process.

Now, I know that's difficult sometimes and added to which they may not have been trained. So, to this, I'm going to suggest that the whole thing about internal audits is that they aren't often done to benefit the business, so the audit planning process needs an overhaul.

Not doing a whole 12 month audit calendar of processes or 'ISO' requirements and focusing the audits on customer critical or business critical issues, is more likely to get managements' attention and, therefore, support.

This is, of course, the audit holy grail! So, take some technical people and train them to audit (and then try some of the other things here too!!):yes:

Andy
 

harry

Trusted Information Resource
The favourite response to this topic will be 'Training' but people failed to realize that training is just an imparting of knowledge and they overlook the 'implementation' aspect (putting knowledge into practice).

If one does not have internal resource, instead of engaging a trainer for training/refreshing the audit module, I will advocate engaging a known good auditor to come in to lead the audit (at least in the beginning). His job is not to carry out the audit but to guide, coach, advise and refresh the internal auditors mind as they carry out the audit (practically to impart actual auditing skills to these newbies).

This is somewhat similar to the approach of Steel but using external resources. At the end of the audit, the coach will need to do a review and briefing so that each internal auditor will know their individual strong and weak points and can take the necessary improvement action.

Some trainers will argue that they provide practical audit training in their Training module also but its quite different. First, it normally forms a small percentage of the training hours which is too short to be effective. Next, training sessions are jam-packed, not giving trainees time to digest, understand, take a look at their own operation and ask relevant questions. Finally, the atmosphere and available help in a training session and an actual audit is quite different.
 
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