integrity
Below are some of the ideas I discussed while on a panel during a recent international meeting on integrity in development aid. The question posed to the panel was whether or not we should support the development of a global integrity standard in our industry. As all the other speakers
internal audit
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
board
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
internal audit
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
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
Stream of Consciousness
The origins of your team If you are managing or working with a team, do you know its origins? Are you aware how it got built? Understanding the history of your team is one of the core factors in managing it well. Your attitude towards the team will be different
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
link list
A new feature on this blog, here are some of the articles I enjoyed reading these past weeks. The first one is necessarily long, but I will try to post on a weekly basis. Context Drives Choice (and Vice Versa) Entrepreneurs are often seen as great examples of free will
Getting Things Done
Embracing outcomes I've always embraced the idea of defining outcomes for all projects in my project list. It made me feel like my projects were going somewhere, rather then being just a summary of disjointed actionable items which had some commonality because they aimed to achieve a certain
Getting Things Done
Introduction A couple of days taking a car instead of public transportation really eats into my opportunity for writing. Apple launching its iOS 7 did not help either, as I spent all of the past two nights installing and playing with it. That said, I did take the time last
Stream of Consciousness
This excellent article by David Silverman illustrates the challenging nature of internal audit's profession. We do get a bad rap, quite often. Enjoy the article.
risk management
What is a risk register? A risk register is an as complete as possible overview of all the risks that may potentially impact an activity, a process, a division or an entire organization within the scope of a risk assessment. What is the purpose of a risk register? A risk