Articles
Check out these free cRisk Academy articles below from some of the top minds in the industry. Thought provoking content and additional resources with each article.
What Is an Agile Mindset in Internal Audit?
By Toby DeRoche
In agile auditing, we understand that the ability to respond to changes in the risk landscape is more important than rigidly following an approved audit plan. This is an incredibly powerful statement because it upends decades of traditional audit practice. The concepts behind agile are to be flexible and to have an agile mindset that allows you to make changes without negative connotations.
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Inflation Just Ate Your Raise
By Jason Mefford
Do you know the real reason why 87% of Americans are stressing about money right now?
Inflation just ate your raise. In fact, the average American is spending over $450 more each month.
So what are we doing to help, and what can you do?
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Addressing ITGC Challenges with Agile Auditing
By Toby DeRoche
Many internal audit departments plan to adopt agile auditing principles soon to keep up with the rapidly changing risk landscape. When asked about the transition, most say they plan to focus on business risks first and hold off on IT General Controls (ITGCs). Since agile concepts were developed for IT professionals, it is ironic that so many auditors are hesitant to apply agile to ITGCs. This article will demonstrate how to apply agile techniques to ITGCs and address many common challenges in auditing ITGCs. READ MORE...
A Simple Strategy for Agile Auditing
By Toby DeRoche
Identifying and mitigating emerging risks has become increasingly critical over the past few years. If you are not familiar with the term, emerging risks seem to come out of nowhere, or it could be risks you know about that suddenly blow up into something much bigger than before. Climate change is an example we can all see. The western US has dealt with drought in the past, but now lakes and rivers are drying out completely, something we have never seen before. In the business world, anticipating emerging risks is extremely difficult, and it’s a never ending task. I have found an effective strategy for addressing emerging risks to adopt an agile mindset that focuses on addressing management’s most urgent risks through frequent risk assessment and true risk-based auditing.
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Being a Trusted Advisor – What Does it Really Mean?
by Hal Garyn
We go about doing our assurance work, and many of us take on advisory projects as well. And we like to view ourselves as competent business advisors on risk, control and governance, right? So, we got the “advisor” piece down. And there are plenty of materials, including Richard Chambers’ book, “Trusted Advisors,” available for reference on being a good “advisor” in an internal audit capacity. But, what about the word “trusted?” What does being “trusted” really mean, and how do we get to be “trusted.” READ MORE...
Open Your Team’s Communication with Agile Audit
By Toby DeRoche
I spend a lot of time talking to people as they transition from traditional to agile auditing. Usually, we focus on the big improvements that agile auditing brings, like responding to the right risks at the right time and better alignment with senior leadership expectations. One of the secondary benefits that often comes up is improved communication within the audit team. READ MORE...
Auditing the Culture of a Changed Workforce
By Jason Mefford
It's probably no surprise to you that the workforce and culture in organizations has changed significantly in the last two years. Terms like the great resignation, quiet quitting, return to work, inflation, worker disenchantment, and wage increase pressure are now common place in media and what people are talking about.
How should internal audit assess, adjust and audit these cultural changes? What are questions you should be asking yourself so you can adjust your audit plan for the rest of this year and for the coming year? READ MORE...
Internal Audit Leadership – My Time Has Come, Am I Ready?
By Hal Garyn
Most anyone in internal audit will ascend to the audit leadership ranks given time. For some, it happens quickly (perhaps too quickly?), and for others it might have been a long time coming. Perhaps your time in internal audit has not been the more logical progression of staff to senior to supervisor to manager, etc., and you have transferred in and/or out of internal audit. But, at some point in time, READ MORE...
Embracing the Spirit of Agile
By Hal Garyn
There has been, and will continue to be, a lot said about internal audit and a move to “agile auditing.” The use of quotes around “agile” is intentional, as there are the formal constructs of an agile implementation (scrums, stand-ups, etc.). But there are also just the concepts of what an agile implementation is designed to accomplish, or the spirit of embracing agile. READ MORE...
New Internal Audit Skills Needed - Data Analytics
by Jason Mefford
One of the biggest changes to the future of internal audit is using more data analytics. One can’t go anywhere in the audit world without hearing about the need to use more data analytics in our testing. READ MORE...