Overview:

Writing an effective audit report means communicating key messages to your audit stakeholders, clearly, concisely and persuasively. It means writing recommendations that will be agreed, accepted, and acted upon. Every word matters when you need to satisfy demanding stakeholders in today’s dynamic international environment.

Participants will learn audit report writing best practices and will apply these tools, techniques and strategies to write stakeholder-focused, action-oriented audit reports that achieve better results. Techniques to persuade in writing, the cultural impact of language, and stakeholder needs are keys to getting easy agreement of findings, risk categorization and recommendations.

Presentation and discussion of each topic will be followed by practice exercises and writing practice. Immediate feedback and coaching successfully closes the learning loop.  A writing assignment is completed prior to the workshop to set a baseline for each participant.

Learn proven techniques and strategies that thousands of auditors from Europe to America to South Africa have learned and put in place immediately following the workshop.

Program Objectives and Results:

• Plan and prepare with stakeholders in mind so writing is focused and concise;
• Learn universal principles of writing in professional English that are specifically tailored to audit reports;
• Write persuasive audit findings and recommendations that meet IIA standards;
• Gain efficiencies during audit report writing and review process to first draft to final acceptance;
• Learn techniques for self-review to consistently monitor and meet professional writing standards;
• Address the avoidable cultural mistakes in your audit report writing style that could provoke or offend your international audit client;
• Practice writing findings and recommendations with immediate feedback and coaching.
• Gain efficiencies during audit report writing, editing and review process to quicken the time from first draft to final report acceptance

Additional Benefits:

• Board members and their needs, apply audit executive best practices in writing so your management reports are clear and concise
• Techniques to improve readability of your writing
• Universal best practices in writing to build active and effective sentences and paragraphs
• The art of writing management findings including criteria, condition, cause, risk and recommendations
• Persuading in writing specifically for the audit environment
• Value-added executive summaries
• Self-monitoring techniques