AUDITING (3rd PARTY)

The final intended outcome of the audit is to reach a comment. This is a recommendation for certification or
recommendation for not to certify. Since the certification authority belongs to the certfication body, audit
team not have such an authority. The audit team can only recommend to the certification body after the audit.

To reach a comment, (recommendtion) team will need ten sor hundereds of findings. For each unique
requirement within the audit criteria, team should identify (find) whether it is conforming or nonconforming.
And after the team finish auditing all the requirements and identify finding for each of them they have overall
evaluate the result and they reach their comment.

For identifying the conformity or nonconformty to any requirement, auditor needs to identify a number of
audit information which is audit evidence. This information can only be identified by audit trials. As to ask to
people, check the documented information, observe the surroundings, equipments, infrastructure etc.

As would be seen from the above information, most of the activities during the audit is depend on to getting
information. Auditors job is mainly to get information, it is different than the consultancy and / or training as
these is for giving information. Humanbeing would only get information by the eyes or the ears. Mouth never
get information it is only for giving information so, auditors should not speak too much, instead of this they
should observe and listen.

All the information during a successful audit should from outside to the auditor by the eyes and the ears of the
auditors.

Obviously auditors will need to speak sometimes during the audit. This should only be for getting information,
ie, asking questions. Questioning is the only way to get structured, valuable information. If you not questioning
properly it means you are chatting and you can not get the information you desire. So auditors should ask
formal, structured questions. In order to do that auditors use the words What, Why, When, Where, Who and
How to ask a question and certainly the final Word to Show. So auditors have 7 freinds who helps him to get
proper information during the audit.

Questioning is important since the questioner is the party who defines what to speak. So auditors should be
careful that they are the questioner, if any auditor lets to other parties ask question then the session will not
be audit but more likely be consultancy.

Questioning is also important that it identifes how much information to get from the people. Auditors should
develope their questioning techniques in order to get the information on time and correctly. If you ask a good
question you can get information you look for but you can not get proper information with a wrong question.
Questioning is important to properly manage the time during the audit. There are so many questioning
techniques that the auditors can use. Some of them are as follows ;
When you investigating the type and the style of the questions you ask will determine the degree and the type
of the answer you get. Any people who asking the question is controlling the whole process and always in the
front, therefore for any audits only the auditors should remain asking question and controlling the audit, if the
members of the organization audited asking questions we can not mention about a proper audit process.

Auditor should try and use different questioning techniques for gather the information and obtain the audit
evidences. Auditors will generally ask open questions, in which the yes or no or short answers are not possible
and push the auditee to speak more. But when auditor needs a confirmation especially if an evidence showing
a nonconformity obtained auditor might need to get the answers yes or no in this case auditor would ask
closed questions.

Some of the auditees would not be helpful for giving information for different reasons. In order to get
information from these people auditor might use to ask different type of questions. An apple tactic here might
be useful that auditor ask question a bit and then when get a part of the answer ask an other question in the
same topic.

Active listening might also be used to push the auditees to give more information that the auditor listen the
auditee, summarize what them sell and wait them to give more information. This might also push the auditee
to give more information.

Auditor using the open and closed questions to get the information needed as audit evidences. When they
stats to give information auditors should listen what they are saying and at the same time they are observing
the around in order to get the organizational daily working practices, which might give good information for
the auditor to use at the final evaluations. Auditor if couldn’t get the evidence they are looking for would ask
their question second time or again in order to push them that the auditor insisting on getting the answer on
that topic. An auditor never answer own question instead of the auditee this will be a very bad auditor
behaviour.

Auditors will use targeted questions in order to clarify any point in the checklist and in order to evaluate the
subject under audit.

Since the management system audits are a process audits auditors should ask about the process, its inputs and
outputs as well as the controls and resources.

When questioning auditor should continue asking and when obtained the evidence should pass to an other
subject by questioning. Auditors might sometimes use the silence in order to pressure the auditee to give
more information.
If an evidence not reached completely auditor might ask follow up questions in order to get further
information this might start with the words, Show me, What happen after, What happen if occur. This type of
the questions might lead to auditor to learn about the limits and the borders of the management system.

During the audits there are a lots of the reasons to develop resistance from the auditee to give the
information. These might be due to the process itself, or due to the personnel characteristics of the auditee or
due to the style and management of the auditors or something else. But it is the auditor who should manage
all the resistances and resolve all of them. Any resistance should be resolved as soon as possible because all of
them will lead to loose time and audit might become ineffective.

During the audit and collecting evidences auditors should always remember the time management factor in
the area. Since there is limited time and all the checklist points should be clarified. Auditor should always look
the remaining time and remaining check points. There are a lot of sources for an auditor to loose time and any
auditor should aware of these and not lead them to make the audit ineffective.

These might be chatting, argument with the organization, between the personnel of the organization or
sometimes between the audit team. Chatting and meaningless arguments are big sources of loosing time.
Auditees sometimes use different tactics to consume the time of the audit. First of all an auditor should be
careful about such situations and should be aware this type of tactics occur because of a need of an auditee. A
well known tactic might be the long breaks or frequent no availability of the personnel in the audit area.
Auditor should not permit such a situation in all the audit time, when occur one or two time auditor should
take an action that it wouldn’t be happen again.

An other issue in the time management is to deal with too much details, Remember that because of this
reason we are conducting sampling audits, therefore auditor should not look all the details and instead of it
sample the evidences.

If the previously prepared audit program is not good enough, during the audits there might be some logistic
problems. In order to avoid such a problem lead auditor should prepare effective and realistic programs and
plan the audit based on the information in this program.

This is true for all management system audits because time is money for all parts in the audit. A good time
management could only be possible with a good preparation.
We will have several communications during an audit. And all of them influencing the audit performance.
Good auditors will use all these communications for the purpose of the audits and get information easily by
using these. These include, body language, but be careful that it also might cause misunderstanding very easily
and create an unnecessary resistance.

Auditees usually have a concern about the result of any evaluation and result of the audit. They try to get
some information about it by observing the auditors and try to get impressions form, body language, face
expression, speaking style, breathing etc. All of these gives an idea to them, being aware this situation auditor
should use all of these in a professional manner.

We are conducting our audits always on the organization site, this is because some information could only be
get by observing and by speaking with the people of the organization on the job. There are little chance to get
those information from the records or the documents so auditors need to speak with the organizations
personnel quite a bit.

Auditing of a management of an organization is an other subject or matter to be considered and discussed.

The success of the audit will primarily be evaluated and decided by the management of the organizations,
since they are the party who paying for all the process and they are looking audits helping their management.
So audits must create value for all parties. The management in the organizations are not too much inside the
technical works related with the quality, rather these technical jobs mainly given to the professionals in the
company. But on the other hand there are requirements of the organizations management in the standard and
should be audited. During the audit of a management of and organization, auditor will chose appropriate
language, appropriate type of asking questions and different type of using body language and face etc. All
these should be controlled and suitable for auditing the managerial level.

There are a lot of hazards that might cause any audit ineffective, auditor should stay in the scope all the time.
Shouldn’t go the places where there is no activity in the scope and do not look any where which is not related
with the audit.

You are in there in the audit because the certification body give you the job and your job is bounded with the
scope of the audit. Your responsibility there is to identify the audit evidences in the organization. No body give
you the job for you to tell about your opinion in the organization and nobody cares about it. The people in the
organization knows their job better than you. It is not your responsibility to teach them their business.

An auditor behaviour that always speaking and telling about its opinions will not be good auditor.
The audit process should be a win to win process all the parties would get benefit from the outputs of the
process.

In order to conduct an easy and effective audits, auditor should be professional and should speak with the
personnel in a professional manner.