Leading internal audit - the Agile way

Establishing a clear purpose is vital before embarking on an Agile journey. Agile isn’t a goal in itself. Rallying your team around a shared goal can greatly increase the value derived from Agile. At a large global bank, the chief audit executive (CAE) was clear about defining success from the start. We worked with the CAE and team to generate their vision during a tailored design thinking-based (lab) experience. Key parts of their vision were to audit the highest risk areas, empower team members, engage stakeholders, and improve decision-making. While their focus early in their journey was on Agile itself, they never lost sight of their shared goals. Whenever they ran into challenges, they returned to their vision, which transformed the context for the bank’s efforts and ultimately spurred their success.

Powerful leaders set the culture of their organization consciously. This means awareness of their patterns and interactions with everyone in their organization. The CAE at a major domestic retailer consciously created his culture by telling his team it was OK to make mistakes as long as they learned from them. This was the right thing to say—but he backed it up with action. Deloitte helped him understand that shifting to an Agile mindset required him to establish an environment safe for learning. As a result, he suspended standard IA methodology for the pilot teams while they were going through the transformation, meaning they wouldn’t be held to account for deviations from detailed methodological requirements as long as they still delivered a solid, well-supported audit. This freed up the pilot teams to create a better, leaner methodology, which enabled their Agile experiment to succeed, as well as eventually enhance their methodology to align with their new ways of working and still align with the IIA standards.

Agile leaders think first about what can enable the success of their people. While working with a large US insurance company, a special moment occurred when the CAE and her directors gathered in a conference room to whiteboard their new Agile organization. After weeks of conversation and contemplation among the team, the CAE had decided that the goal was to establish persistent teams that would work in sprints using Agile values and principles. When the group started whiteboarding in the conference room, she physically stepped aside and let them figure out how. In reflection, the CAE shared with us, “Once I felt like the team had a clear, shared vision of what we needed to accomplish, I expected them to figure out how to get there because they were closer to the details than me. Once they convinced me the plan was sound, we were off and running.”