A couple of weeks ago, I took part in the digital days of the German Institute of Internal Auditing (original: Deutsches Institute f\u00fcr Interne Revision \u2013 DIIR).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An exciting congress where there were not only presentations on many current topics, but also the opportunity to exchange ideas with other participants despite the digital setting \u2013 thanks to a virtual coffee bar where participants could meet during the breaks between the presentations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Impressive that this great opportunity for exchange can also be made possible in times of virtual congresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, when I entered the virtual coffee bar, it felt like there were only two or three other participants apart from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No problem at first, because even in this reduced constellation it was possible to have interesting conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what surprised me was that there were over 200 participants:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where were the rest?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When it was time to give my talk on the second and last day of the congress, I mentioned to the audience how successful I thought the set-up of this virtual coffee bar was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reactions in the comments sidebar of my presentation surprised me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
several participants reported that they had not been able to enter the coffee bar due to technical difficulties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the reasons given were the security settings including the firewall and the incompatibility with the browser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What surprised me, however, were not so much the technical difficulties \u2013 after all, we are all rather beginners when it comes to virtual congresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was surprised that none of the participants had addressed these technical errors before \u2013 after all, we had already reached the last day of the DIIR Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My impression:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A great opportunity to exchange ideas and network was given away here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, this phenomenon of \u201csaying nothing\u201d is not unusual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the contrary:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
in the context of digitization, mistakes happen again and again \u2013 the question is how to deal with them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In my dealings with other auditors who work in companies, I repeatedly hear that there is still a lot of catching up to do when it comes to \u201cerror management\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fear of getting into trouble with superiors by admitting one\u2019s own mistakes is too great \u2013 although admitting mistakes is essential for successfully changing processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But addressing problems, in general, is also made difficult for many auditors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, it is still the case in many corporate cultures that the bearer of bad news is tarred with the same brush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Digitization has a lot of potential for error!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because an incredible amount has changed in the last few years!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The world \u2013 and its data \u2013 are now more and more closely interconnected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s clear that this rapid development also leads to errors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that\u2019s exactly what I talked about in my presentation at the DIIR Digital Days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The title of my presentation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Audit Digitization Fuck-ups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, over the years, I have observed several mistakes that keep occurring in companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of them, for example, is impatience:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
companies often want to achieve too much too fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the consequences of hasty digitization are hiding everywhere:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
if a company wants to digitize not just one process, but four at once, and if all of this is supposed to happen particularly quickly, then there are often errors in content:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
for example, the software does not record processes correctly or retrieves data incorrectly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such errors are not unusual in the test phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, if they remain undetected due to time pressure, they can quickly become expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it is not only the software that is quickly overwhelmed \u2013 but employees are often too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because they are often not on the same page as the drivers of digitization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the one hand, this leads to employees not understanding the advantages of digitizing individual processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, a half-hour crash course in software operation is usually not enough to fully penetrate a program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The consequences are, on the one hand, operating errors that do not \u2013 as planned \u2013 save time and costs but cause them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, the motivation of many employees to participate in the digitization of the company decreases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But rushed digitization is only one of many mistakes I addressed in my presentation \u2013 to repeat all the points here would probably go beyond the scope of a blog article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What struck me, however, was that there seemed to be a particular interest in dealing with mistakes in the questions following my presentation \u2013 possibly triggered by the discussion about the coffee bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two of the questions asked were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1st question: \u201cHave you experienced an audit communicating its own mistakes in the company? What happened?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My answer: \u201cYes, I have experienced that. However, in most cases, these mistakes were only addressed within the audit team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once, however, I witnessed the auditors openly communicating a mistake to the company as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, however, the environment was not prepared for this, so that this opportunity could not be used.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Question 2: \u201cDo you think that an audit should be open about its own mistakes in the company?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My answer: \u201cYes! In one\u2019s own team this should be an absolute must.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the company, however, mistakes should only be openly communicated if the corporate culture is already established and lived accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If not, I think it belongs on the audit program.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the digital DIIR days, I could not get the topic of \u201cerror management\u201d out of my head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked myself:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Can we as auditors allow ourselves not to openly communicate errors?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is this not a very important part of our work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And how can we succeed in becoming better in this area in the future?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Therefore, I have decided to deep dive into this topic a little more and write a small group of articles over the next couple of weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But of course, I am also interested in your opinion here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n