Internal auditor

Anyone who is expected to carry out internal audits and has been given the responsibility without the method. Typically quality staff, supervisors and technical managers.

Planning an audit programme that covers the system over a cycle rather than auditing the same easy areas repeatedly. Preparing a checklist from the standard and from your own procedures. Conducting the audit: how to ask an open question, how to follow a thread, and how to sample records rather than accept the ones you are handed.

Then the harder half: writing a finding that is objective and traceable to a requirement, grading it honestly, agreeing corrective action that addresses cause rather than symptom, and verifying closure with evidence rather than assurance.

Most weak internal audits fail at the same two points: the checklist is a copy of the standard, and the corrective action fixes the instance rather than the cause.

The second day is spent auditing a real process, writing real findings, and having them critiqued. Attendees leave having written findings that would survive review, which is not the same as having been told how to write one.