You Routinely Audit the Same Areas
Repeatedly auditing the same areas can create a comfort zone where organizations become complacent and fail to improve. This heuristic warns against routine audits that reinforce the status quo rather than driving meaningful change.
THE IDEA
You Routinely Audit the Same Areas
Sometimes audit or inspection teams look at the same area every few years. This may be because there is an understanding a regulator would like this or because stakeholders have seen problems in an area, or fear problems in an area, and want extra assurance from audit.
But the danger with repeat auditing is that the audit team, and the organisation, can settle into a ‘comfort zone’ mode where everyone expects the audit to look at something. Still, little is changing or improving in the way the area is being managed. Supplement C1, which is not included here, provides an account of how a CAE refused to do a routine audit and, as a result, helped an organisation ‘snap out of a trance’ and start to make significant process improvements.
When to use it
When designing an audit schedule, reassess focus areas against current risks and assurance needs.
When stakeholders request repetitive audits, examine the evidence for their value and consider alternative assurance methods.
After a series of routine audits that yield no significant findings, initiate an unexpected deep-dive into a neglected area to stimulate improvement.
In a management review, assess whether repeated audits address the problem and which obligations must remain covered before changing the schedule.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Routine Audit Breeds Complacency
In a hypothetical procurement department, the team repeatedly prepares for familiar audit questions while recurring process problems remain unresolved. The audit leader reviews why earlier recommendations have not led to change and discusses management’s responsibility for improvement. Simply moving the audit elsewhere would not resolve those problems.
Predictable Inspection Timing
In a hypothetical hospital, scheduled observations capture unusually careful hand hygiene. The team reviews whether its observations represent everyday practice and considers changes to sampling and timing while maintaining required oversight. A change in infection rates would need to be measured separately.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
What areas in your organization are audited repeatedly without notable improvement, and why do you continue the cycle?
How could you break out of a comfort zone in your own audits or inspections to encourage genuine change?
Are there processes you oversee that have become predictable and stale due to routine oversight, and what would a fresh perspective reveal?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Beyond the Five Whys Root Cause Analysis and Systems Thinking (James C. Paterson)