Internal Auditor Writing Abilities

[VAMtns41]

I retired from IA in mid-2007 after 30+ years. One of my biggest problems as Manager & Director was the too often complete inability of internal auditors to write accurate, clear, concise, comprehensive, readable, understandable, and factually supported audit reports, which "sold" the conditions found and corrective actions recommended. Too often they did one or more of the following: (1) stopped at the "symptoms" and wrote the findings, never finding the real causes, resulting in no solution to the problems; (2) did not write simple and to the point; often writing multiple pages rambling on when 1/2 page properly done would be sufficient (management does not have the time and inclination to read long audit reports) ; (3) frequently mixing up subjects in the same paragraph or repeating multiple subjects in multiple paragraphs, resulting in confusion the readers; and (4) confusing the reader by not using the correct subject, verb, and action in each sentence; that is, providing the information "backwards"; often switching in sentences in the same paragraphs!

Many of the auditors did competent work and could usually explain audit reports verbally. However, when they started writing, some type of gremlin took over their brains! I think this is primarily caused by universities which do not emphasize, teach, and grade on written and verbal communications!

In my humble opinion!

I appreciate your thoughts, observations, and recommendations.

[auditnet]

I agree with you that many auditors have difficulty in expressing their findings and recommendations into a report that conveys the results of their audit. I have been teaching audit report writing for the past several years and still find that the process is perhaps one of the most difficult for auditors to grasp. Some organizations have special units that only write reports which to me only discourages staff auditors from improving their communication skills.

What would you say are the keys to writing effective audit reports and more importantly the best methods to teach auditors these skills?

[VAMtns41]

What would you say are the keys to writing effective audit reports and more importantly the best methods to teach auditors these skills?

Over the years I tried a lot of things and virtually none of them worked. A very few auditors I supervised could write; but most could not and although they worked hard at it, they never made much progress! Among the things I tried were sending staff to audit report writing classes, such as Marry Bromage (sp?); having them provide me an outline before they wrote reports; providing verbally & in writing specific audit report writing Right and Wrong hints & specifics; using standard report formats; crying & yelling a lot; and last, but not least, write the reports myself (which I hated to do .. but you got to get good reports out on a timely basis!).

I have thought about this problem often wondering why! My conclusion options are any, some, or all of the following:
a. Poor K-12 education from our schools
b. Too many people just cannot write due to either aptitude or attitude or both
c. Universities did not emphasize, have enough of, or simple did not care how well their students wrote.

For me, in undergraduate school, a. & c. applied; in graduate school only a. applied. I worked hard for many years until I could provide, after hard work, a clear, concise, effective, and relevant audit report.

Wish I had a good answer! If I did I would patent it and be a millionaire!

Ron