I was recently reminded of the time (nigh on 15 years ago) when our audit department took on brainstorming sessions. We needed some changes, we needed to shake some things up, and we needed to have a better understanding of what our customers needed. So, the theme of the brainstorming sessions (held in ten different locations) was “How can we make the audit experience more like going to Disneyland?”

I don’t know the final total – maybe four, five, six… probably more. But there were a lot of sessions at the IIA All Star conference related to fraud. In fact, there was an entire track devoted to “Ethics and Fraud.” I attended three of them in the first two days of the conference.

In my first post from the IIA All Star Conference, I wrote about a presentation on leadership within Internal Audit — what we need to exhibit, where we need to go, and how we might get there. The presentation itself delivered a very positive set of opportunities while, at the same time, throwing all of us a challenge.  

For my first report from the IIA All Star Conference, I’d like to do something a little different – actually report on one of the sessions. Larry Harrington, VP of Internal Audit for Raytheon, kicked things off with a session titled “The Internal Audit Leader of the Future.”   There were a lot of interesting concepts in the session. I’m not going to try and put them in a coherent whole (you want a coherent whole, come to a conference a presentation), but I will share some bits and pieces, along with my thoughts on what they might mean to you, me, and the profession

Five presentations at the IIA All Star Conference today and, regarding those presentations, I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. This all came on the heels of seeing a production of the play “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.”

One day at the IIA All Star Conference and I’m already sensing a theme. Now, sensing a theme in a conference can be a fool’s game. There was one general session and four concurrent sessions of four sessions each. We all saw the general session. (That is, everyone who had not passed out from advanced vertigo at the roulette tables saw that one.) But there were sixteen possible combinations of concurrent sessions that could have been seen. (Like that math? Four years of college didn’t go to waste.) That means sixteen different interpretations of “what this conference is all about”. But I can tell you the sense of things that I got. 

A couple of weeks ago it was “International Talk Like a Pirate Day”. Because this initiative has been so successful, I put together a modest proposal for all of us to start celebrating “Talk Like an Auditor Day”. I didn’t see it catch on right away. Then I realized why - we already talk like auditors all the time. We can’t help ourselves.