Mastering Communication and Report Writing for Internal Auditors

Module: Communication Skills Overview

• Importance of effective communication skills

• Professional Standards and communications

• Challenges for internal auditors

• Fundamentals of communication

• Benefits of effective communication

• Communication channels for internal auditors

• Internal audit communication methods

• Planning to communicate effectively

Activity: Solving communication problems

Module: Characteristics of Effective Communication

• The theory of communication

• Communication process: Encoding, Decoding, Perception, Feedback

• Communication styles

• Knowing your audience

• Golden rules of effective communication

Activity: Know your audience

Module: Listening Skills

• Communicating by listening

• Comprehensive, Critical, and Relationship listening

• Listening styles

• Qualities of good listeners

• Avoiding poor listening habits

• The importance of body language

• Body language zones

• Internal auditors as listeners

Activity: How do you rate as a listener?

Module: Developing Relationships Through Effective Communication

• Key factors in relationships

• Successful business relationships

• Effective stakeholder engagement

• Understanding stakeholder requirements

• Managing stakeholder expectations

• Collaboration and cooperation

• Dealing with difficult people

• Assertiveness in the workplace

• Positive and negative conflict

• Conflict management

• Golden rules of workplace communication

• Checklist for managing conflict

Activity: Stakeholder mapping

Module: Meeting and Interviewing Skills

• Importance of meetings and interviews for internal auditors

• Types of meetings and interviews

• Interview structure: Preparation, Introduction, Exploration, Investigation, Verification, Analysis, Summary, Closing

• Question types: Open, Probing, Closed, Clarifying, Confirming

• Strategies for challenging situations

• Levels of questioning

• Overcoming common interview challenges

• Golden rules of internal audit interviews

Activity: Assess and improve your meeting and interviewing skills
Activity: Overcoming challenges in interviews

Module: Negotiation and Influencing Skills

• Characteristics of effective negotiators

• Negotiation tone and structure

• Conducting and closing negotiations

• Win-win outcomes and other negotiation results

• Golden rules for effective negotiations

Activity: Let’s negotiate!
Activity: Developing a Win-Win approach

Module: Communications and Internal Audit Engagements

• Importance of effective communications for internal engagements

• Communicating the engagement plan and during the engagement

• Tone and presentation of findings

• Structuring presentations

• Golden rules when presenting findings

Activity: Developing your presentation skills – The Shard

Module: Communication Skills Within the Internal Audit Team

• Leadership and management

• Leading remote teams

• 7 attributes of effective internal audit leaders

• Team motivation and coaching

• Communication skills for coaching

Activity: Coaching to improve

Presentation

Module: Why Internal Auditors Write Reports

• Reasons and importance of reporting

• Adding value and changing behaviour through effective reports

• Common challenges and mistakes in audit reporting

• Reporting to gain agreement and change behaviour

• Best practice reporting process

Activity: Common difficulties in reporting
Activity: Common mistakes in reports written by others

Module: Types of Audit Reports

• Engagement reports

• Real-time reporting – interim reports

• Summary assurance reports

• Audit memorandum

Activity: Design a summary assurance report for the Board

Module: The Reporting Process

• Outline and structure

• First draft, editing, review, and approval

• Delivery and distribution roles

Activity: Preparing the outline
Activity: Writing the first draft

Module: Writing the Report

• Seven dimensions of quality reporting

• The five ‘Cs’ approach: Condition, Criteria, Cause, Consequence, Corrective action

• Dealing with audit findings: Favourable and Deficiency findings

• Report tone and timing

Activity: Structuring audit findings
Activity: Improving wording in audit reports

Activity: Writing Effective Reports

• Achieving clarity

• Constructing professional paragraphs

• Best practice sentence construction

• Words that mean something

• Appropriate punctuation for clarity and pace

• Importance of editing

• Effective editing that adds value

• Reporting timeframes for maximum impact

Activity: Determining the clarity and effectiveness of your writing
Activity: Improving paragraphs and sentences
Activity: Be the editor

Module: Report Structure and Process

• Executive summary

• Background, introduction, and acknowledgements

• Objectives and scope

• Audit opinion

• Findings, evaluations, and conclusions

• Ranking findings

• Recommendations: wording, priority, action plan

• Appendices

• Assurance opinion definitions

• Target audience

Activity: Who reads which section
Activity: Design an effective management action plan
Presentation

Module: Reporting with Impact

• Improving report appearance

• Data visualization techniques

• Impact of colour and imagery

• Creating effective charts

• Embedding charts and images

• Data graphics that make a difference

Module: Reviewing and Agreeing the Report

• Meeting IIA standards for communicating results

• Review methods and quality checks

• Agreement process: information, negotiation, pre-distribution check, distribution

Activity: Role play of exit conference with the client
Activity: Common errors in written English

Module: Following Up the Report

• Importance of follow-up

• Effective follow-up systems

• Monitoring management action

• Practical follow-up approaches

• Escalation procedures

• Reporting to the Audit Committee

Activity: Following up internal audit recommendations

• Engaging your target audience

• Effective engagement protocols

• Gaining informal and formal feedback

• Demonstrating action taken from feedback

Activity: Gaining feedback

Module: Course Assessment