internal audit
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
Getting Things Done
The short of it At a certain point, you need to make a lead of faith and start trusting your GTD system. If you do not do that, you will not be able to test its real relevance to you. The Last Crusade There is this great Indiana Jones movie.
Getting Things Done
Why you should not be responsible of answering every email immediately Imagine a situation where you are putting a small stool next to your post box. Rather than doing anything useful, you just sit there, trying to get things done while stopping every five minutes to open the post box,
data analysis
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
Basecamp
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
Getting Things Done
What does your to do list look like? Take a look at your to do list. It looks anything like mine, it's a set of executable actions structured by project, as well as some structured single action lists. Look closer still... How many of these projects are really
Stream of Consciousness
I'm not one to lightly put advertisements or suggestions for support on my blog. I avoid that because it makes our relationship different. I want to produce interesting, relevant, good content which I hope you can enjoy. However, this one is a little different. I know a few
Getting Things Done
Are you looking for permission? Look again Lots of people I know look around frantically for someone to give them permission. Permission for almost anything in their lives. Such an attitude is a great way of avoiding the responsibility of doing anything at all with your life. But of course
management
A continuous challenge Delegation is a continuous challenge for quite a few managers. Especially when they need to delegate critical tasks under their direct responsibility, the threshold to delegation can become very high. I have known and still know a lot of managers that would rather do the work themselves
opinion
I just discovered this article by Garrett Gitchell on his Horizontal Change blog. It mentions an article I've written a while back and provides a set of highly relevant comments in reaction. The site provides good, concise and wonderfully opinionated (I should recognize opinionated when I see it,
gtd
Sven Fechner has provided a short and as usual concise description of a key to do if you are a 1Password user. If you are not a 1Password user, you should become one ASAP. It is the best cross-platform program out there to securely manage your passwords. Thanks Sven!
internal audit
A couple of days ago, the president of the Belgian federal audit committee announced that he was resigning because his committee did not receive the required support from the government to allow it to achieve its objectives. He was quickly supported by at least one high profile president of a