Creativity comes out of a mind that sees things in a different way.  Auditors begin with a distinct advantage because they are outsiders who observe the workings of an organization where everything is new to them, and no question is stupid.  Combine this perspective with their responsibility to identify possible improvements; auditors must be creative on the public's behalf. 

In the survey phase the auditor needs to spot significant problems and begin thinking about the appropriate actions to conduct the fieldwork.  An auditor is usually exploring in unknown territory and needs to gather facts, find the interconnections, and assemble the people, procedures, and tasks into a working mental model of the organization, its parts, interactions, and its functions.  All of that requires quick absorption of information, mental flexibility, and ingenuity in grasping the whole picture.  Then, the best auditors choose an audit scope and objectives that encompass the elements of findings that have the largest positive and practical impact for the public.

Let me speak heresy here.  I believe risk assessments limit the creativity of auditors.  Sure, auditors can brainstorm all sorts of bad things that might happen and develop audit plans that test whether they are happening and whether management is taking the steps to prevent them from happening.  I think risk assessments are healthy exercises to perform but there is one risk question that is difficult to grasp without observing the organization and its operations: Are the resources producing their maximum effect?  In many cases, the auditor will find that the inventory of what might go wrong produces audits that have less impact than a survey plan that finds out what is actually going wrong.  When I go to my doctor, he takes some quick measurements (weight, blood pressure) then we talk about my symptoms, and perhaps conduct more specialized testing, to diagnose the problem and prescribe a solution.  He doesn't start by inventorying all the possible things that could go wrong, then start running every imaginable test.  That's not to say auditors should ignore risks, only that there needs to be a balance between the two areas of inquiry.  As I get older my doctor does run more tests as certain risks increase.

Since I'm speaking heresy, here's another: Borrowing someone else's audit plan has risks in itself.  I seldom found value in someone else's audit plan because it usually didn't match up with the problem I was trying to audit.  The survey and fieldwork plans are custom documents that identify the tasks to develop all the evidence needed to find and document the most important solvable problems facing the organization you are auditing.  They are particular to the objectives, laws, information systems, management structure, organizational weaknesses, financial constraints, and interactions with partner agencies that you need to understand so well.  Of all the things that can go wrong in an organization, what are the odds that the same five elements and all the sources of evidence will be the same?  Someone else's audit plan should be only one of many different strategies for documenting possible findings, but I wouldn't use them any more than someone else's prescription medication. 

The successful plans gather evidence to make a persuasive case for change. Obtaining the evidence to support the elements of a finding is often the most challenging and satisfying part of an audit.  A key audit tool is quantification of the effect element of the finding.  In other words, change is more likely to occur if there is a large financial or performance benefit in doing so.  Nobody says that they would prefer wasting a million dollars rather than change their scheduling of personnel.   

There are many modern tools for quantifying problems and diagnosing solutions. Personal computers put them at the auditor's fingertips: statistical analysis software, surveys, optimization, probability, GIS, queuing theory, econometrics, decision analysis, and simulation to name a few tools.  If you have never used any of these tools, they are not so difficult to learn.  You may find a course at a local university in Quantitative Methods that teaches types of problems and analytical approaches to solving them.  However, even the simple calculation of rates and averages of operational data will often give the auditor insights that management is not aware of.

Once you've successfully gathered the evidence for your findings the greatest creative challenge begins: writing the audit report.  We write our report for the auditees, the public, and the elected officials.  That range of audiences requires concise and clear language as well as compelling charts and tables.   The auditor needs to clear an easy path that these audiences can follow to the problems and then to the recommendations.

There are many ways that the same audit report can be written, and for some audits you have probably it in all those ways before someone chose which one to publish.  We need to appreciate that communicating complex ideas in a compelling way is much more difficult than getting someone to read a story with a plot, characters, and gunplay.  (Gunplay would no doubt increase readership, but the increase in readership may not be worth the price paid by the auditor.)

A great deal of creativity is necessary to produce the graphs and tables that visually convey key elements of the findings.  There is nothing more persuasive than a chart that portrays a key element, and there are many different kinds of charts to choose from.  I would encourage you to visit the library and examine any of the books by Edward Tufte who has assembled every kind of chart along with stories about its source and use.  The creativity is breath-taking and the stories they tell in themselves are remarkable.  For example, he has a chart developed in France not long after Napoleon's march on Russia that tracks the size of the army, date, temperature, and geography to portray the horrible death and attrition during that winter.  The more you study it the more tragic that quest appears.

During my career I worked with a lot of new auditors and tried to explain why things happened as they did.  Here was a phrase I found both honest and amusing: "This is not your typical audit, but then no audit is typical."  Every audit is a learning experience and the successful auditor must be nimble and innovative.  That's what I like about performance auditing in local government.   

I would encourage you to let me know if and how you disagree with anything I say.  On the website you can add your comments to any article.  Perhaps we can get a good discussion going and you can persuade me and others that I am slightly or completely wrong.

Average user rating

Display 2 of 2 comments