Stream of Consciousness
Workflows are about optimizing your personal process Developing workflows have the advantage of allowing you to optimize your work process. This will allow you to become more efficient in the future. The disadvantage then is that you need to invest the time now. And workflows take some time to develop.
Stream of Consciousness
Minding the buzz-word "Single audit" has been the word of the year in the audit professions for a while. Especially in public sector, auditees have been complaining about the enormous charge of work which brings no immediate added value to the table. In some cases, up to four
Stream of Consciousness
What audit is about Most of us familiar with the (internal) audit profession know what it is about. I’m not rehashing the excellent definition of the Institute for Internal Auditors. As auditors we need to use our independence to objectively gather, analyse and test facts and figures on the
Stream of Consciousness
It’s not (just) about independence The IIA recently released a paper on this IPPF on independence and objectivity. Independence is sometimes used by internal auditors or organizations executing the internal audit function as an argument to motivate a distance from the organization they’re auditing. And while independence is
Stream of Consciousness
Encountering the resistance There’s in inherent fear in most, if not all of us. I used to define it as laziness, but I understand now that’s not what it is. It’s fear. Sometimes hidden, sometimes very barely concealed, freezing fear. Sometimes it beacons you to walk away
Stream of Consciousness
I just passed by this vintage Macintosh in the window of a small repair shop close to my office in the center of Brussels. It appears to be sitting there, very important and proud, on top of the display case. Old tech is wonderful. I wanted to share it ...
Stream of Consciousness
We spend a lot of time in meetings But it is not always very clear why these meetings are organized. And given that many people actually do not really talk during or contribute to meetings, it makes you wonder whether all attendees need to be present. Why are employers paying
Stream of Consciousness
A brief history The relevance of using risk models as the basis for risk management was disputed in the beginning of this century. It actually remains disputed as an approach by a number of authors. In the early ‘00’s, leading risk management advisory companies did not see the reason
Stream of Consciousness
Procedures are an integral part of business The management of an organization depends for a significant part on established procedures which govern the way in which the organization confronts its challenges. Developing and writing procedures often comes as a afterthought, with either the quality department of a junior collaborator being
Stream of Consciousness
Traditional cost reductions don’t take customers in account Most organisations do not realize they are imposing significant burdens on their users. Any interaction involves a transaction cost. Organizations competed on cost reduction platforms, trying to drive down the transaction cost as low as possible … for their own operations. Quite
Stream of Consciousness
For those of you who speak either Dutch or French, a nice journalist named Brigitte Doucet wrote a comprehensive article based on the keynote I gave at the Software AG Process Forum in February 2011. While I am formally no longer actively working in burden reduction, one of the key
Stream of Consciousness
I’ve been using mind mapping in combination with with OmniFocus for better capture, processing and next action execution. Let me tell you a bit on how I got there. My brain is chaos Sometimes, I have chaos for a brain. I’m not kidding. In the past, this has