Course title

The Basic That Matter (1 day)

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At present, with the impact of Covid, many audit teams are questioning some of the basics of their audit approach.  Specifically, have we looked at our work programmes and updated these to support with lean & agile ways of working? 

Who should attend?

Internal audit managers and experienced audit staff

Course Programme

• Improve assignment planning – be clear about the “golden thread” between the audit plan and the assignment, so that you don’t lose focus

• What are the priority areas for a given assignment?

• How work programmes link to different assignment types (e.g. review, audit or investigation) and the different levels of assurance they provide

• Using diagrams/tables to explain what is in/out of scope

• Using flow-diagrams and the lean SIPOC technique to prioritise work when auditing a process

• Sharing work programme templates – learning when they are too short and when they are too complex

• Sharing specific examples of control objectives – and how to use these to create a library of key controls that can be leveraged  

• How to test the design of individual controls and how to test whether there are enough or too many controls for a given risk?

• How to judge the impact of control failure – when it is helpful to do this at an individual level and when it is best done in aggregate

• Being clear about causes to see the wood for the trees

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CPE competency areas covered

• Professionalism

• Performance (Risk management | Internal control | Engagements)

• Environment (Organisational strategic planning and management)

• Leadership and communication (Audit plan and coordinating efforts)

James C Paterson is a former Head of Internal Audit. He is on the IIA UK panel for EQA, helping to set up their EQA assessment frameworks.  He has extensive experience of doing EQAs, and also helps organisations prepare for an EQA. He delivers this course across Europe, including other courses on how to qualify to be an EQA assessor. He is the author of the book “Lean auditing”