8 MOVES TO BECOMING AN

AGILE INTERNAL AUDIT

1

Choose According
to Need
Transitioning to an agile auditing
methodology over a period of time can
help to effectively manage the change
and garner support from the
organization’s leaders and managers
in the process. By taking a phased
approach, you have the flexibility to
focus on what works and adapt or
eliminate what doesn’t.
Start out small 2
Adopt agile concepts that have
the most impact for your
organization or internal audit
function. For example, two key
elements of an agile audit are
reducing the internal audit planning
timeline — focusing on a six-month or
one-year time horizon so that your
audit plan and focus are flexible
to adapt to emerging and changing
risks. Increasing the frequency of
communication throughout the audit to
deliver real time, value-driven results
management can quickly action from a
report issued a month or two after the
audit is complete.
Gaining executive and board support is critical to the success of implementing agile audit
concepts, as transparency and collaboration amongst all parties is necessary to fine-tune
the process to the organization’s evolving needs. Discuss with executives and audit
committee members what you would like to accomplish with agile audit, how it will unfold
and the changes to expect in report formats and contents. Share the new approach with
whoever you are auditing and explain how it will improve the process. Seek their
feedback upfront to understand both concerns and get early feedback on ideas to
enhance the process in order to ease implementation.

Get the board

onboard
 Simplify the List
Typically, an audit starts by identifying
and assessing all the risks within the
audit you need to consider and the
traditional audit program is designed to
complete a thorough assessment of each.
Distill them to the most significant risks,
working with management to agree on key
risks, and focus on those that truly matter.
Leverage your audit results to then focus
on key risk issues and opportunities, deep
dive into areas of most concern and stop
auditing where your initial assessment
identifies little to no value. The key is
understanding insights from the audit,
abandoning work that is not driving value 4
and quickly shifting to cover areas of
greater risk and reward.
 5 7
Tighten your timelines
Many organizations have two-to-
three-year timelines for internal audit
projects. By changing that to a one-
year window and meeting with your
team on a monthly or biweekly basis,
you’ll be able to present the status of
your work, revisit risks and control
objectives and make sure you are
focusing audit efforts in the right
areas.
6 8
Optimize your report writing
Agile auditing will provide real-time
insights that can be used to
customize the report format (i.e.
length and content) to meet
stakeholder needs. A concise report
that covers critical factors and
delivered real time allows you to
respond quickly and with more
impact than a “perfect” report issued
long after the work has been
completed.
Collaborate and Communicate
Agile audits are risk driven, so it is critical
to work with your organization’s board,
audit and risk committee and
management to agree upfront what those
key risk exposures are. Outline your audit
objectives, scope and risk areas to
collaborate with your stakeholders on
what will drive value-added audit results
addressing the risk areas of greatest
concern for your auditees.
Let’s Scrum
Part of the agile audit process includes
scrums — fixed-schedule stand up
meetings, both with the team and/or
management where the team reviews
projects’ progress or lack thereof.