From Insight to ACTIONABLE Insight

Thank you, Norman.

Earlier this year, Norman Marks published an article that captures the essence of Internal Audit's purpose:

"We need to give these people (individuals and groups) the information they need, when they need it, in a way that is easy to consume and act on."

Pay attention to EVERY single word in that sentence.

The information they need, not what we think they might need. When they need it, not at random times. In a way that is easy to consume, self-explanatory, and actionable.

I recently experienced this firsthand.

Last year, I worked on a project that took about 40 hours and resulted in at least $5 million in savings for our organization. I wrote about it here... it was a truly impactful project. We identified two areas that required immediate action from management, and they acted upon them right away. A testament to the value of what we identified. It was self-evident to management that action was needed.

About eight months later, we revisited the area to confirm that the changes implemented were working as intended. To our surprise, management had not only implemented the changes quickly but had also conducted a soft audit of the processes themselves about three months after our initial review. This is what we all want for our organizations!

During the second review, we identified one area of opportunity that we hadn't reviewed initially. It was a "fine-tuning" type of process improvement. We let management know about it, and while there was a potential savings opportunity, it wasn't as significant as the first one. At the end of the project, management emailed us saying "Thank you for sharing this information."

Then…there was dead silence for about two months.

Our team was scheduled to meet with one of our executives, and I was curious if management had acted upon our observation. I emailed them asking for an update, and the response was, “Unfortunately, we didn't pursue it.” My team then crunched the exact numbers and found that the change would save the company approximately $300K. Armed with new information, we revisited the opportunity with management. This time, the response was, "Thank you! This will be helpful in our negotiations" and "If there are any additional suggestions, we are all ears!"

We missed the opportunity to quantify what we identified earlier. We gave them the information they needed, approximately at the time they needed it, but not in a way that was easy for them to consume and act upon.

Next time you share your insights with audit customers (executives, management, Board, etc.), make sure you have all those elements: information they need, when they need it, presented in a way that is easy to consume and act upon.