How to Evaluate Corporate Culture

What you will gain from this seminar:

  • Five common-sense principles for evaluating “soft” controls
  • Fifteen proven cultural evaluation tools from world-class audit departments
  • How to develop tools that will work in your own organization
  • How to sell the radical expansion of audit scope to management
Who should attend:
  • Auditors with at least one year of experience
  • No prerequisites

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One-Day Seminar Outline

What Are Soft Controls, and Why Are They Important?
- The impact of TQM, reengineering, empowerment
- The impact of new control models: COSO and CoCo
- Examples of hard and soft controls
- Exercise: Identifying soft controls in a business process
- Five principles for evaluating soft controls

How World-Class Audit Departments Are Evaluating Soft Controls
- Overview of IIA research study, Control Model Implementation: Best Practices
- The critical components:

  • Self-assessment
  • Risk assessment
- Exercise: Where are you today?

Two Useful Frameworks
- Internal Control – An Integrated Framework (the COSO report)
- Guidance on Control (the CoCo report)

Tools & Techniques for Work Team Self-Assessment
- Control self-assessment (CSA) workshop
  • The two basic techniques
  • Two best practice examples
- Self-Assessment Questionnaire
  • Commercial Federal
  • Rensselaer Polytechnic

Tools & Techniques for Entity-Wide Self-Assessment
- Discussion tool for Management Interviews
  • Commercial Federal Bremer Financial
- Management Interview Guide and Self-Assessment Tool
  • Bremer Financial
- Self-Assessment Survey
  • Ameritech

Tools & Techniques for Audit Project Risk Assessment
- The risk assessment thought process
- Risk/control matrix
  • Most common features
  • Key points in applying the tool
  • Benefits
- Alternative versions of the Risk/control matrix
  • AuditTrends
  • Commercial Federal
  • Reliastar Financial Corp
  • Barry Leithhead & Associates
  • To evaluate controls after reengineering

Tools & Techniques for Entity-Wide Risk Management
- Operational-level ERM
  • Freddie Mac

Tools & Techniques for Pulling It All Together
- An integrated set of tools & techniques to evaluate control for the organization as a whole
  • MAPCO
- An integrated set of model audit reports
  • The Williams Companies

How To Make It Happen
- Critical steps in implementing your new tools and techniques
- Developing an implementation strategy
- Selling the new approach to management
- Internal control training for management and/or all employees
  • Cargill