Practical Tips to Rock Your Virtual Audit Kristy Kistner, Director, Performance Excellence, ORAU, Harriman, TN, USA Keywords: Virtual Audits, Remote Audits, Practical Tips Industry: Services Level: Basic AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic has been a crisis in many dimensions – public health, the economy, communications, and business practices, just to name a few. The pandemic and social distancing have forced many institutions to go virtual. It has also moved virtual auditing from a possibility to a necessity. ISO 9001-registered organizations needed to move to virtual auditing so they could maintain their annual external audit schedule (surveillance or re-registration). This session will outline how Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) transitioned from an in-person to a virtual audit in 2020 and had a second virtual audit in 2021. The session will address: -Audit planning When should you schedule the audit? Who should attend? Who will the auditor(s) interview? How will the auditor observe work? -Communicating before the audit What do you communicate to members of top management? How do you prepare interviewees for the virtual interview experience? -Managing technology What should you do if meeting attendees lose connectivity? What if the auditor loses connectivity? To share or not to share cameras? “You’re not on mute” – minimizing distractions to keep the meeting focused. -Information security How secure is information shared in a virtual meeting? How can you share electronic copies of business sensitive documents? -Communicating during the audit How do you “go around” a virtual meeting room to introduce participants? How do you avoid meeting attendees interrupting each other? If a virtual meeting is running over its allotted time, how do you alert attendees for the next meeting? In addition to learning the above, attendees will receive a Virtual Audit Tip List. |