Auditing system and process risk

Course details

The objective of the day is to: 

• Review well-known audit failures, drawing conclusions to recognise that the audit process must change.
• Review other drivers of change including reduced budgets and increased expectations
• Describe why auditing needs to be both backward and forward looking to provide management with the 'vision' of potential risk to the deliver of objectives
• Understand new emerging Auditing techniques that seek to assess the impact or importance of people's behaviour on the delivery of business objectives, making visible what is often invisible until the related risks to poor performance or unintended events become reality 
• Report risks to the delivery of objectives / outcomes to Senior Management in their language using risk profiles, scores/graphs and benchmarks between groups, teams and sites from which improvement activity can be more effectively targeted.

The aim of the day is to understand the constraints of current methods and introduce new performance based assessment techniques. These report risk to the delivery of objectives and other performance drivers based on what really happens and not just what is written down.  The day will therefore not cover compliance auditing, questioning technique, audit planning or non-conformance writing.

It is unlikely that delegates would fully benefit from this course if they do not understand the issues and content outlined in the Strategic Quality course.

Course dates

Course prices

Who should attend

Quality managers, auditors, risk managers who may well have attended a Lead Auditor or Internal Auditor Courses and carried out audits routinely and now want to develop their understanding further and develop new techniques fit for the 21st century.

Why you should attend 

There may be a disconnect with Senior Management, who see your current auditing as not adding real value to the business – for example, they may feel that it is only currently supporting a certification, not the business.  Engagement of Senior Management with auditing at a business level may be difficult to achieve, with more strategic and business risk-based reporting needed to accomplish this. You may be looking for a way to re-energise and re-launch Auditing to better support your business. 

Course content

Learning from the past - why traditional auditing approaches have been found wanting

• The emerging auditing principles based on the management of risk
• The super auditor myth
• Assessing the impact of individual behaviour on the risk to the delivery of results i.e. understanding real-world capability and confidence
• Assessing the complexity of the real world to understand what is actually happening
• Making visible what is often invisible, so that it can be managed before a problem emerges
• The science of behavioural assessment and what really is objective evidence
• Addressing audit fatigue issues
• Continuous assessments, using online techniques and data analysis to make more use of limited human resources
• How third party certification has already changed to embrace behavioural and risk based assessment for those that  need to move beyond the 'plateau'
• Case studies will be used to explain learning points 

Course Style

A workshop style is used with plenty of practical explanation as to how to audit and report risk to the delivery of business objectives, talking a business language to gain management buy-in to the audit process, whilst at the same time auditing against a range of standards or frameworks

After this delegates will be able to:

• Audit what people actually do, not what they say they do or write down
• Report risk to the delivery of business objectives, not just conformance-based reports
• Understand the limitations of human being based auditing and create audit programmes that recognise this constraint
• Understand how to reduce audit fatigue and the cost of auditing
• Understand how to overcome the auditing 'plateau'
• Free themselves from the constraints of existing approaches

Course tutors

Ian Rosam

Ian Rosam has helped organisations build and implement process based whole-organisation management systems using the principles of System Thinking. This means seeing the organisation as a living entity – ever changing and evolving as to adapt to the business environment in which it finds itself. 

These principles are based on good management best practice and organisational design needed to implement Standards such as ISO9001, other standards and Excellence Models.  The focus is concerned with business performance and the way good quality principles contribute to this.  From this real-world understanding, Ian and his colleagues have successfully challenged the existing approach to auditing, turning auditing from a low-value, tactical issue to a strategic management tool indicating the risk of not achieving business objectives.  Ian is more than happy to share what he knows in this cutting edge thinking and to help people to evolve both their management system and the auditing approaches they use.

Ian is a member of the Chartered Quality Institute, Institute of Bankers and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.  He is also D32 and D33 qualified to assess individual competence.

He regularly contributes to the CQI newsletter and Quality World, with articles focused on challenging the status-quo. He has also co-authored 7 books which have been published by BSI Business Information, extending from 9001, through auditing to Business Sustainability and CSR.  He is also the Co-Director of a Certification Body.

Ian has facilitated many workshops including public events for BSI as well as those needed to meet internal company requirements.  He has presented at numerous international conferences, including ones on the application of ISO9001, the future of assessment and auditing and on effective management of CSR / Corporate Governance.

Rob Peddle

Rob Peddle is a director of The High Performance Organisation Group (www.the-hpo.com) based in the UK. He is a passionate advocate of ‘System Thinking’ - especially the capability this gives organisations to deliver the broad range of business requirements now demanded by stakeholders. A Chartered Mechanical Engineer by training, he has wide experience across many different business sectors. This broad view of many organisations and what makes them effective is the foundation of his strong belief that process management starts in the boardroom and is an essential first step towards delivering the complex demands of every organisation in the 21st century.

He has co-developed the 360 degree behavioural assessment techniques needed for Auditing in the 21st Century. Delivered online, supported where needed by onsite review, these report organisational risk, effectiveness against the drivers of business performance, business maturity and compliance. This approach has greatly enhanced audits, such as those for 9001, internal process audits, customer satisfaction etc, significantly maturing audit activity for many organisations.

Rob is also well published, having written a number of books and articles on System Thinking and business auditing. These provide significant ‘real world’ support to the delivery of Corporate Social Responsibility and business effectiveness.

CQI training courses

At the CQI we offer the very best in quality training for both experienced quality professionals and those completely new to the field. Our highly experienced trainers present a range of public courses covering a wide variety of topics, both introductory and advanced.

Fully flexible in-house training packages can be individually tailored to suit the needs of your organization and are conducted on site at your premises by our experienced trainers. We can offer any of our public portfolio of courses in-house, as well as many other topics. Please contact us for more information or to discuss.

Contact CQI Training:

T: +44 (0) 20 7245 6696
F: +44 (0) 20 7245 6788
E: training@thecqi.org