And part of scaling your business is you know as you grow you can't be across
absolutely everything and so I can't be across everything that's going on here
at best practice so what's really important for me is that I know that if
we decide on a particular process that we want to implement that, that process
is getting followed. So each of the management system standards that we work
with whether they're quality safety environment data security food safety
talk about internal audits as a process control so how do I know that you're
following our process like you're new here in the business and there's a few
policies as a few ways of doing things you know how do you how do you know what
to do and so what we try to do for important regular repeatable activities
that actually capture that process so however we do it like we might do it in a
Word document as a flow chart we might do it in a video we might have a set of
instructions that said like a sequencing of events which means that I can just
give you guys stuff to do go do that process and I don't have to give you any
more instructions so systemizing but there comes a point in time where you
want to say well there's a few things that we have to do to regulatory
requirements or because there's legal requirement all those sorts of things
so then someone came up with the concept let's do orders so each of the
international standards recognizes the internal audits are an important part of
any management system because there's a feedback loop you do internal audits to
verify whether you're following your processes you do internal audits to look
for opportunities for improvement getting other people in the business is
good because if they do the internal audits that forces them to learn the
system because they're going shit I need to know this because I need to talk to
you know Bill or Bob or Fred or Jane over there about the process so I get
asked a lot about that so we have internal auditor training it's it's
available on our training academy if you're a clients of best practice it's
free it's included in our service because it's important to learning how
to do this stuff is important so there's a great course but some top tips for you
in terms of looking at internal audits knowing that they're important is that
it's really important to sit on the fence and not get emotional in an
internal audit so don't get frustrated with the people that you're working with
as an internal auditor one of these cameras all you're
basically doing is taking a picture or a video of what's happening in terms of
status quo so in fact if you you if you videoed something happening and when
showed it to the boss there's not a motion it's just like you don't say
anything you just say here's a video that I took so an internal audit is
here's a video here's a photo of what I took this is what I observed now part of
an internal auditors role is obviously to verify whether the process is being
followed so you're saying here's the process
that's documented or captured or written down and here's what's happening and
they match or they don't match there's no emotion it's not a cover leave they
don't match it's just they don't match and so the language we're using that in
internal audit world or audit world is non-conformance or non compliance it's
not complying I think that's a negative word I don't think it adds any value to
the conversation you just say that I match what we saw out there in the
organization is not what you guys documented as the process so is that a
risk for is what they're doing right is what's documented right or what they're
doing right which ones right it's not your judgment call as an internal
auditor it's the organization to decide and often a manager and there's some of
them sitting out here the managers here will say no no what they're doing is
right okay that's fine let's update the documents or let's update the process
because often business keeps changing and evolving and it goes so quickly we
don't get time to update our processes so more often than not we see the
resulting internal audits being that the systems and what's captured and
documented is not up-to-date and and so people do default to that now why is
that important well obviously when someone you start the processes right
and so you pull out the doc you think are some on the left so someone leaves
the organization you don't have a handover someone new starts two weeks
later there's no knowledge transfer all you've got to transfer the knowledge is
the policies and procedures you documented while you're doing the until
that's really important to remain impartial to sit on the fence and just
you know practice that impartiality piece and just go they match although
don't match I think the other thing to think about from an internal audit
perspective is the positioning and what's important I don't think documents
revision dates very important issue I think we I think
what's more important is to say well what are the promises that the
organization are making to their customers if it's the quality system or
safety promises they're making or commitments or management objectives
those sorts of things and then using that as the priority framework how does
the organization's seek to continue cascading the messages through the
organization around policies and procedures if that makes sense
and so then you audit that's your audit focus focus on the standards the
standards are great they're good models they're good guidelines and if you focus
on the standards that will give you a framework to follow iso 9001 is a great
document it get bagged bagged a lot and it's not bagged because of the document
it's bagged because of what people think it's meant to do they think it's meant
to be lots of documents but that's not right it's how it was interpreted so iso
9001 doesn't in at the moment the new edition the 2015 edition of the standard
doesn't say that you've got to write thousands and thousands of procedures
but it says create a good management system that helps your people deliver
the promises you make to your customers that's what it says it says think about
the shit that could go wrong and fix it or be prepared when it goes wrong so
that it minimizes the collateral damage that's all the standard says but there
are Muppets out there in the industry they've gone right thousands and
thousands of procedures so back to internal audits my top tips remain
impartial sit on the fence and describe the mismatch between what you're
observing the organization doing out here what are they all doing and what
the process says and so then you can report back to the executive and you can
say I went out and did an internal audit and I found that what's written down and
what people are doing is not right it's not different and so the training tools
that we use to start new people are not what they could be