The agile mindset is a popular way of working, often linked exclusively to software development, which is unfortunate because its principles can be valuable across many other industries. Anita Péchy, senior audit manager at Reanda, strives to adapt it to the audit firm. “You need to customise this mindset to an audit firm, you can’t just take it from the IT environment.”
Anita first got introduced to the agile mindset eight years ago where she worked on a big client. “A lot of parties were involved and together we had to figure out how to do the audit on an efficient basis. We tried to implement parts of agile. It was at that time when I started to understand what agile project management is and how we can make a difference in audit.”
What is agile mindset and scrum?
Agile is a broader mindset of working, focusing on flexibility, collaboration, and delivering value through incremental progress. Scrum is one of the most well-known frameworks used to implement Agile principles. It provides a structured way to apply the Agile mindset with specific roles, events, and artifacts. It breaks projects down into smaller phases. It’s a flexible and interactive approach. “Agile is a mindset,” Anita emphasises. “It’s about cooperation, with the team and with the client, adapting through feedback and reacting to changes.”
“Scrum is a really intense collaboration”
The agile audit firm
With scrum, it splits the project – the audit – into different phases. Anita explains how it would work: “Say we have a four-week audit so I split it into four parts: four weekly sprints. The planning is to have everything finished at the end of those four weeks, and I set subgoals for every week to ensure steady progress. Every day, we have a ’daily scrum’ meeting to discuss what the team is working on, what the plan is for today, and if there is anything that’s blocking their progress.
“At the end of each week we review the work completed through the Scrum Review Event, furthermore we reflect on our process and identify areas for improvements. We need to discover any internal, external inefficiencies. That’s part of the Sprint Retrospective session. What went wrong, what went well and do we need to change anything? It’s an intense collaboration which I think is crucial. Timely feedback is key for the team and for the clients. The team is prepared and knows what they need to do. Managers are aware of any problems and can escalate it in time to the client.”
Traditional audit and agile audit
“The thing is, there are a lot of differences between traditional and agile audit. Traditional audit is a kind of fixed audit. Everything is determined at the start: the strategy, the capacity, the team; there’s a fixed audit plan. There are mandatory steps you have to follow and it’s not easy to change during the audit. Agile is more flexible and you can adapt to changes more easily. If you didn’t plan the audit properly or don’t have the right capacity, or if there are new audit risks, you need to adapt to these new circumstances.
How do we do that? With regular communication in the team and with the client. Traditional audit has less formal interaction. There are meetings, but those are more ad hoc. In agile there are pre-determined, pre-agreed upon meetings. That way clients get more interaction and status updates. There is a constant feedback loop to the team and the client which means we can improve during the audit. In traditional audit, you do the audit, focus on the core tasks, and at the end you deliver the feedback. That’s too late. Do it earlier so not only the next client benefits from the changes, but your current client sees improvement as well.”
“As an auditor you wear a lot of hats. Don’t forget that the project manager role is a key role.”
Implementing Agile at Reanda
“In theory, the whole scrum method and events are not rocket science,” Anita says. “But in practice it can be difficult. Sharing the basics and the purpose with the team is important.” Anita is slowly implementing the agile mindset at Reanda. “We’ve formed an Agile project group with many enthusiastic colleagues, and as the first step, Agile training sessions are currently underway. Then we can start implementing agile. Not for the full portfolio, but on a smaller scale first and continually learn and improve
Changes are never easy, but the first feedback was positive. “Colleagues realised it’s a good way to cooperate with each other and to improve quality. Of course, it takes time to implement changes. But I feel the support and I think that is what matters most.”
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