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diff --git a/content/blog/2023-08-18-agile-auditing.md b/content/blog/2023-08-18-agile-auditing.md deleted file mode 100644 index f813596..0000000 --- a/content/blog/2023-08-18-agile-auditing.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,158 +0,0 @@ -+++ -date = 2023-08-18 -title = "Agile Auditing: An Introduction" -description = "A quick introduction to using the Agile methodology in an audit." -+++ - -## What is Agile Auditing? - -[Agile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development), the -collaborative philosophy behind many software development methods, has -been picking up steam as a beneficial tool to use in the external and -internal auditing world. - -This blog post will walk through commonly used terms within Agile, -Scrum, and Kanban in order to translate these terms and roles into -audit-specific terms. - -Whether your team is in charge of a financial statement audit, an -attestation (SOC 1, SOC 2, etc.), or a unique internal audit, the terms -used throughout this post should still apply. - -## Agile - -To start, I'll take a look at Agile. - -> The Agile methodology is a project management approach that involves -> breaking the project into phases and emphasizes continuous -> collaboration and improvement. Teams follow a cycle of planning, -> executing, and evaluating. - -While this approach may seem familiar to what audit teams have -historically done, an audit team must make distinct changes in their -mentality and how they approach and manage a project. - -### Agile Values - -The Agile Manifesto, written in 2001 at a summit in Utah, contain a set -of four main values that comprise the Agile approach: - -1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. -2. Working software over comprehensive documentation. -3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. -4. Responding to change over following a plan. - -Beyond the four values, [twelve -principles](https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html) were also -written as part of the summit. - -In order to relate these values to an audit or attestation engagement, -we need to shift the focus from software development to the main goal of -an engagement: completing sufficient audit testing to address to -relevant risks over the processes and controls at hand. - -Audit Examples: - -- Engagement teams must value the team members, client contacts, and - their interactions over the historical processes and tools that have - been used. -- Engagement teams must value a final report that contains sufficient - audit documentation over excessive documentation or scope creep. -- Engagement teams must collaborate with the audit clients as much as - feasible to ensure that both sides are constantly updated with - current knowledge of the engagement's status and any potential - findings, rather than waiting for pre-set meetings or the end of the - engagement to communicate. -- Engagement teams must be able to respond to change in an - engagement's schedule, scope, or environment to ensure that the - project is completed in a timely manner and that all relevant areas - are tested. - - In terms of an audit department's portfolio, they must be able - to respond to changes in their company's or client's - environment and be able to dynamically change their audit plan - accordingly. - -## Scrum - -The above section discusses the high-level details of the Agile -philosophy and how an audit team can potentially mold that mindset into -the audit world, but how does a team implement these ideas? - -There are many methods that use an Agile mindset, but I prefer -[Scrum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development)). -Scrum is a framework based on Agile that enables a team to work through -a project through a series of roles, ceremonies, artifacts, and values. - -Let's dive into each of these individually. - -### Scrum Team - -A scrum project is only as good as the team running the project. -Standard scrum teams are separated into three distinct areas: - -1. **Product Owner (Client Contact)**: The client contact is the audit - equivalent of the product owner in Scrum. They are responsible for - partnering with the engagement or audit team to ensure progress is - being made, priorities are established, and clear guidance is given - when questions or findings arise within each sprint. -2. **Scrum Master (Engagement Lead)**: The engagement or audit team - lead is responsible for coaching the team and the client contact on - the scrum process, tracking team progress against plan, scheduling - necessary resources, and helping remove obstacles. -3. **Scrum Developers (Engagement Members)**: The engagement or audit - team is the set of team members responsible for getting the work - done. These team members will work on each task, report progress, - resolve obstacles, and collaborate with other team members and the - client contact to ensure goals are being met. - -### Scrum Ceremonies - -Scrum ceremonies are events that are performed on a regular basis. - -1. **Sprint Planning**: The team works together to plan the upcoming - sprint goal and which user stories (tasks) will be added to the - sprint to achieve that goal. -2. **Sprint**: The time period, typically at least one week and no more - than one month in length, where the team works on the stories and - anything in the backlog. -3. **Daily Scrum**: A very short meeting held each day, typically 15 - minutes, to quickly emphasize alignment on the sprint goal and plan - the next 24 hours. Each team member may share what they did the day - before, what they'll do today, and any obstacles to their work. -4. **Sprint Review**: At the end of each sprint, the team will gather - and discuss the progress, obstacles, and backlog from the previous - sprint. -5. **Sprint Retrospective**: More specific than the sprint review, the - retrospective is meant to discuss what worked and what did not work - during the sprint. This may be processes, tools, people, or even - things related to the Scrum ceremonies. - -One additional ceremony that may be applicable is organizing the -backlog. This is typically the responsibility of the engagement leader -and is meant to prioritize and clarify what needs to be done to complete -items in the backlog. - -### Artifacts - -While artifacts are generally not customizable in the audit world (i.e., -each control test must include some kind of working paper with evidence -supporting the test results), I wanted to include some quick notes on -associating scrum artifact terms with an audit. - -1. **Product Backlog**: This is the overall backlog of unfinished audit - tasks from all prior sprints. -2. **Sprint Backlog**: This is the backlog of unfinished audit tasks - from one individual sprint. -3. **Increment**: This is the output of each sprint - generally this is - best thought of as any documentation prepared during the sprint, - such as risk assessments, control working papers, deficiency - analysis, etc. - -## Kanban - -Last but not least, Kanban is a methodology that relies on boards to -categorize work into distinct, descriptive categories that allow an -agile or scrum team to effectively plan the work of a sprint or project. - -See Atlassian's [Kanban](https://www.atlassian.com/agile/kanban) page -for more information. |