On Friday I was audited
If you live in a corporate world you will be familiar with the sensation. I’d like to say I felt warm all over, but I would be lying (lying through my teeth).
I was put through a “process audit” by an auditor in his mid 20’s, 6 foot 2 inches, white teeth, blue suit, shiny shoes and a self-satisfied attitude. Your average nightmare.
As he walked into my office I started to bristle, he got out his iPad (I ask you) so he could take notes of our conversation.
Then the inquisition began…
How do you know what your customers want?
- Do you understand your customers requirements?
- Do you have an agreed specification?
- When did you last talk to your customers and check the agreement still holds?
How do you deliver that consistently?
- Is your process mapped?
- Do you have work instructions?
- Have you got a training plan?
How do staff know what to do?
- Are roles and responsibilities clear?
- Can staff over-ride the process?
What measures do you have in place?
- Do you have clear management information?
- Are all the measures agreed and calculations documented?
- Is performance reviewed regularly?
What are the risks?
- Do you know what could go wrong?
- Do you know how bad it would be?
- Are your risks documented?
What are the controls?
- Do you have risk mitigation plans in place?
- How do you make sure your process does what it should?
It was like facing a human machine gun. After an hour-long interrogation he left. Smiling to himself.
The worst bit?
He did keep repeating the phrase “show me” (which caused some angst) but that wasn’t it.
It was the fact that his questions were really quite good. If I answered them all correctly, I really would have shown him I understood exactly what was going on.
I get the feedback next week…
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Image by Butte-Silver Bow Public Library
Hello James
I sometimes think that the real value that I create as a consultant or performance coach is to ask these kind of simple/obvious questions and thus call my client to reflect upon them / grapple with them. The clients that do this wholeheartedy tend to be surprised by what is unconcealed in earnestly grappling with these questions.
Why are these questions valuable? Because we live in action oriented cultures where thinking skills are not taughted and reflection is not valued. As such almost everyone is busy doing, turning the handles, following the well trodden path and producing what needs to be produced.
Maz
Hi James,
Great set of questions. I’ll look forward to hearing the feedback you get.
I’m going to take a note of the Qs and file them away as a secret weapon ;)
Adrian