I had an incredible experience today while preparing to unveil The IIA’s new Hall of Presidents. I was reflecting on the contributions made by The Institute’s past presidents, and it was literally overwhelming to realize just how much difference these eight individuals have made on internal auditing since Bradford Cadmus was appointed the first full-time managing director in 1947.

In my last blog post I discussed how often CAEs of small audit shops lament about the challenges of working with limited resources, and I expanded on three of six strategies I recommend for generating a “big impact” with a small staff. I’ve talked about the impact you can make by following the risk, leveraging the resources you do have, and benchmarking your success. But there are three more strategies that I’ve found can mean the difference between just another audit and making a lasting difference for the organization and a lasting impression on your stakeholders.

I often hear chief audit executives (CAEs) of small audit shops lament about the challenges of working with limited resources. In a way, I can sympathize. For most of my career, I worked in or led small audit shops. In fact, the first three years that I served as a CAE, I only had three or four full-time internal auditors on my staff. As my career progressed, however, I eventually found myself leading mammoth audit staffs of several hundred auditors. While it was nice to have all those resources to dedicate to the complex high-risk areas of the organization, I never felt quite as proud of our ability to generate “big-impact” audit results as I did with those smaller shops. In my last blog post, I discussed defining big-impact audits. But you may ask, “can we make a big impact with limited resources?”