Creative and Critical Thinking for Auditors

Selecting performance audits to conduct is like building a successful investment portfolio. Developing meaningful objectives helps ensure each audit efficiently and effectively achieves meaningful results. Together, selecting the right audits and clear objectives provide a return on investment that is highly valued, relevant, and meaningful to the stakeholders it serves. Explore techniques and factors for selecting and planning audits based upon measurable factors of risk, materiality, public interest, and public benefit as valued by its many stakeholders. You will identify stakeholder interest and needs, future opportunities, and external threats; apply a cost benefit approach using measures of outcome value to score proposals; and formulate compelling audit objectives leading to meaningful specific future-oriented recommendations of value.

What You Will Learn

Learning Outcomes:

• Apply strategic customer value in assessing desired stakeholder needs
• Perform a SWOT analysis and logic model to consider audit topic objectives
• Perform a PESTLE analysis to assess the external risks and identify areas of vulnerability and opportunity for scoring potential audit benefits and results
• Apply a cost/benefit approach to score the potential value of audit proposals
• Describe the central role of objectives in performance auditing
• Write objectives that provide clear direction for planning fieldwork, assigning staff, facilitating report writing and meeting auditing standards
• Track audit progress and measure actual results

Who Should Attend

APIPA conference sessions are intended for island government accountability professionals.  Audit, budget, finance, accounting, and related management and staff members will find interest and value in this presentation.

Health & Safety Protocols

For all on-site training in the insular areas, the Graduate School USA's Pacific and Virgin Islands Training Initiatives (PITI-VITI) works closely with local training hosts to ensure that participants, instructors, and training support staff enjoy a safe learning experience. Please note the following:

• Full details of PITI-VITI's health and safety guidelines are available here.
• Local health and safety guidelines for the government of Palau, which will be hosting this training, is available at http://www.palauhealth.org/.
• Please contact PITI-VITI Admin at [email protected] with any questions or concerns.