In March of 2018, I got an unexpected phone call.

My client, the stakeholder on an IT project that I’d just finished leading, told me that her company's Internal Audit (IA) function wanted an Agile coach. She said she was absolutely sure I’d do a fantastic job.

I said “Thank you for your confidence, but this is a really weird ide…no, wait, that’s a brilliant idea!”

And there were five main things behind that thought. But they all lead to this: more impactful audits. That’s the business case. That’s why so many big companies are trying Agile internal audit. More impactful audits. Here are my five reasons why Agile is so effective.

1.       A common trap is to spend too much time planning, overanalyzing, haggling about scope. We’re better off getting started as soon as we know enough to get going, not when we have a perfect plan. That perfect plan is an illusion anyways, right? The end isn't clear from the beginning. The project we plan is never the project we complete.

2.       We get value sooner, and greater value overall, if we deliver in small increments during a project. Iterative. Incremental. Not all at once at the end. Which enables #3.

3.       Frequent feedback from stakeholders keeps us focused on what matters most to the business, which keeps them engaged, which makes them more likely to accept and act on our findings.

4.       There's always more work we could do than we have time and people for, so we’re forced to relentlessly prioritize based on business value.

5.       It's common for the people doing the work to get disconnected from value, especially if they're being told to complete tasks rather than empowered to deliver value.

So, the Agile mindset addresses all five, and since 2018 I’ve been working exclusively on this. On helping Internal Audit functions adopt Agile ways of working. At the individual level. At the team level. At the organizational level. With Chief Audit Executives and their leadership teams. I’ve played a pivotal role in Agile taking hold at some of the world’s preeminent companies. Yes, I can provide references.

But, with all this, the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is knowing that what I do is likely to make someone's life better because it makes their job better, and that’s what underlies everything Agile can do. Unlocking the potential of individuals and teams. Which brings us to what makes Agile hard—it’s not a process. It’s about people. And it’s about culture. And like Peter Drucker said, culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Which is where I can help. I’d love to hear from you if you’d like to have a quick chat about how Agile could help your Internal audit function become a more impactful business partner.

What feels different in an Agile internal audit?

Let’s start with a rhetorical question. Can we create a perfect plan before starting fieldwork? Of course not. We’re going to learn things that should make us rethink priorities, especially in today’s rapidly changing risk landscape. We need to expect, or even demand, that our teams learn and adapt throughout an audit. But working in a linear, sequential fashion doesn’t really encourage that.

In fact, the new IIA Standards recognize this: “Although the standards for performing engagements are presented in a sequence, the steps in performing engagements are not always distinct, linear, and sequential. In practice, the order in which steps are performed may vary by engagement and have overlapping and iterative aspects.”

Agile audit teams work in two-week intervals called sprints. There’s still planning, fieldwork and reporting, but they do a little bit in each sprint. When they meet with the auditee at the end of a sprint, they don’t say, “We’re 40% done with this and 60% done with that”. They say, “We looked at this segment of scope, we concluded that X and Y are in good shape, but there’s a finding with Z that requires action, and here’s language that’s going in the final report.”

Now, most auditors’ first reaction to this is “Sounds great in theory, but there’s no way we’re going to reach conclusions after just two weeks.” Granted, it’s not easy—it takes coaching, effort, a couple of stumbles. But it’s worth it, because working this way has profound effects. On your team, and on the business.

First, limiting work in progress lets you get more done. Have you ever had a day where you worked on a dozen things but didn’t accomplish anything? When you stop one thing and start something else, you lose productivity. Neuroscientists call this “context switching”. So, having a bias towards finishing one thing over starting something else lets you get more done.

Also, working in sprints lets you get the most important work done first, not the easiest work first. You prioritize on value and get results to the business quickly so they can act. Then move on to the next most important thing. Footnote—prioritize hand-in-hand with the business. Yes, what you audit is your prerogative. That doesn’t change. But closer and more frequent engagement on value and priority increases business impact.

It’s the framework of sprinting that enables this conversation. We’re giving and receiving feedback more frequently, so we’re taking the business on the journey with us. When we reach the end, we’re arriving together. This contrasts to the old way: requesting a bunch of information, disappearing for three or four months, and coming back with a list of gotchas. You’ll stop hearing from the business, “They’re here ticking boxes again”, and you’ll start hearing “They’re helping me run my business better”.

I’d love to help you achieve this. Contact me if you'd like a quick chat!

How do you get started with agile internal audit?

Let's try a quick experiment. Do this with me: cross your arms in front of yourself. Hold it there for a couple of seconds, then put them back down. Now cross them again, but opposite from how you crossed them before. How does that feel? Unusual? Uncomfortable? Weird?

This is what it's like to adopt agile in your internal audit function. Nothing about it is rocket science, but we all have deeply ingrained muscle memory. For example, auditors are very uncomfortable with the idea that they can deliver chunks of completed work in just two weeks. Believe me, it’s doable. I’ve seen it done repeatedly, but exactly zero percent of auditors I’ve worked with start off saying “sure, no problem, that sounds easy.”

This is why coaching is important. To help you overcome muscle memory.

Agile is not a process. It’s a mindset, and getting there is a journey of learning and adaptation. There’s not a cookie-cutter approach that works for everyone, so the coach is there to guide you, help you experiment, reflect, learn, adapt.

Here’s the typical journey.

Start with a visioning workshop. We’ll explore what you’re trying to accomplish as an internal audit function. What barriers or impediments are in the way of achieving that? You will learn a little about Agile and consider how it could help you overcome those barriers. We’ll emerge from the workshop with a vision and momentum for change.

Next, pilot Agile with a couple of teams. Train them and coach them for 12 weeks. They’ll get accustomed to the Agile mindset and learn a framework called scrum that puts the mindset into practice. It takes about 6-10 weeks for teams to start getting the hang of it, so the coach will be there every step of the way to help them learn, reflect, and adapt.

During those pilots, the coach will also work with leadership to address questions of what Agile adoption would entail. How are your teams organized? How is individual performance measured? How do you manage your portfolio of work? What would a rollout of Agile to your function look like? Together we’ll create a roadmap for change.

Then, as the pilots are wrapping up, we’ll bring leadership and the pilot teams together in a short workshop to reflect on results and lessons. Thinking back to the visioning workshop, what have we achieved? Where have we struggled? And how do we need to pivot going forward?

Again—the process part of this isn’t complex. The challenging part is culture and behavior—teaming and leadership will feel different. It takes focus and intent to develop new habits—that is, getting comfortable crossing your arms in a new way. James Clear said that you don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your habits. That’s where I come in. No one has more experience helping internal audit teams and leaders through this transition. If you’d like to explore further, I’d love to have a chat.