Dan Clayton — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:28:03 GMT

I realize my comment is over a year later, but I wanted to add to the conversation, none the less. I think the theory’s being discussed are right on target. Too many times we get pushed into the silo of what we are asked to do in our job, or our department, or even within our industry. I think the internal audit world is a great example. It has historically been an assessor of compliance. However in the mid-1990’s there was a realization, that much more value could be added by helping organizations acheive their objectives. The definition of internal audit was redefined in 1999 to that effect, noting that we help them reach their objectives by assessing the effectiveness of governance, risk management and internal control. That sounds great and has generated a lot of interest in the industry however the challenge over the last 9 years has been one of not sharing historical context for information creation and communication. Internal audit has continued to develop tools from a foundation that does not reflect an understanding of the business context. Business has been forced, through regulation to take steps towards internal audits context. In the end, the lack of unifying context has created regulation, and mechnisms that do little to actually help the organization reach its objectives. It is getting closer. Close enough that we can see the challenge, but this is a great example of how the same information can mean entirely different things to key participants…to the detriment of all.

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Dan Clayton