I'm back...

It's been over a year since I posted on this blog.  I used to have time in the morning before going to work to write about thoughts I had.  But then I got a new dog that needed walking in the morning and that took all my spare time.  It is nine months until I leave office and potentially auditing all together.  I am going to try to post my thoughts as I look back on 20 years of auditing.  Who would have thought...

One of things I've been thinking about lately is the new generation of auditors.  Do they have the passion to make government better or are they focused on the auditing standards and the process?  When I started I had never heard of performance auditing but it sounded like what I had been trying to accomplish in various government positions over the years.  I think I have mentioned this before but one of the things that inspired me to go to graduate school was a supervisor telling me that what I was attempting to change couldn't be changed where I was at.  I decided to go back, get a masters and start my career at the policy level. And then I saw that ad for a position that sounded like what I was doing but also sounded so much better.  And my career began.

More later hopefully.

December

I took December off. I became inhibited by trying to make my random thoughts more complex and complete. My New Year's resolution is to make one post per week. Whoops! Already missed that.

Back in the game

I have been gone for a while. Some of you know the reason. I had many other things on my mind unrelated to auditing. Although, now that I think about it, it was related to outliers. When you have cancer you can look at statistics and play the odds, the outliers. Auditing posts to follow.

Milestone

It has been over 6 months that I have been blogging. There have been times that I thought I would never have anything more to write about but then some issue or interesting thing appeared. The number of posts each month has declined but I'm not sure that is a bad thing.

I have categorized my blogs now into topics. You can find the list on the right. One thing I learned from that is I seem to be interested in three broad areas: communicating audit results, independence, and transparency. So...maybe my thoughts aren't so random.

Time for reflection

It's been a crazy week! Snow, ice and cold in Portland. Who would have thought? And, trying to tie up loose ends this week before I take a week off for the holidays increased the pressure. My sister was in town and my daughter returning from college. So, I had no time for reflection. But, the ideas were piling up. In the next two days I'll add some posts. Hopefully they're not too dated.

Missing

I've not had as many ideas lately to post about. I think it is because I am preparing for a show of my paintings at the end of November. Seems like all my thoughts are taken up with finishing the work I want to show. Not that I've left auditing musings behind, just that the musings are now more in a visual mode. I have been thinking a lot more about data visualization, perhaps because of my show and I'll probably write about that next.

Soul and Passion

It might seem incongruous that an auditor would think about soul and passion, but an interesting juxtaposition has occurred for me. Working through an audit, facing challenges from the auditee who many times may be in disagreement, reporting to the governing body in a public session, and answering questions by the press can be intimidating. But what sustains me is a belief in the audit process, factual evidence that cannot be denied, and a passion for improving government. Auditing standards and procedures offer a framework and an objectivity that can distance you from emotions and taking things personally.

But in another part of my life I am an artist. And this is very scary for me. Why? There is a process and techniques, but ultimately what you put on canvas and expose to others is your soul. There is no way to distance yourself from the work or not be emotional. You have created something that has meaning and is beautiful to you. It is like giving a gift and not knowing if the other person will appreciate it.

I have found however there are some connections in these two parts of my life. As an auditor and an artist you look for patterns, movement, and placement. You are interested in conflict and power. And you are looking for effect.

Another reason to blog. LOL

There is an article today in the Oregonian (If I can ever find it on their website I will add a link - but that's another story in of itself.) about as you get older, brain exercise is needed as well as physical exercise. Especially recommended are word or math puzzles, but keeping a journal is on the list also. So...blogging can help exercise your mind and keep your brain healthy.

UPDATE: More exercise for the aging brain. I am on the right track. Here is an article about how internet use is good for the brain.

Out of the office

I'm not sure I'll be posting for the next few days. As I take my daughter to college and leave tearfully, I may not have many random thoughts about auditing.

How reading blogs can lead to results

As a postscript to an earlier blog explaining why I decided to blog, here's an interesting post that led to a report that I wouldn't have found without monitoring this blog.

Beach magic

What is beach magic? It is a termed coined by my son to describe photos he took at the beach. It was nearing sunset and a storm had just passed by. The light was magical.

Auditing is sometimes like that. You work intensely analyzing a program or service and come to the end and your team brainstorms what does it all mean. And suddenly the picture of the problem and how it can be improved becomes clear. Now the task is to communicate it effectively so that others can understand.

Why blog?

I am a fan of blogs and read them regularly for information and points of view. We get insulated from different opinions and blogging is one way to expand the scope of information you would normally receive in conversations with co-workers, friends, and family or via standard news media. I have discovered many things from blogs that I wouldn't have seen without them - photos, You Tube videos, documents, and news stories.

I thought about blogging in the context of performance auditing because it is such an interesting profession. Audits are reported on in newspapers occasionally but the process, why and how conclusions were reached, rarely is. What is it that we do? I thought perhaps I could add to the information available. So goal #1 was to increase understanding.

But Goal #2 is the more risky and scary one. I wanted to start a dialogue, to share my thoughts and have others respond. As I have learned from email conversations, writing can easily be misinterpreted when you are unable to see how someone responds to what you are saying. But I decided to take the plunge and keep this online journal, recording thoughts as I have them about auditing.

Taking your work home with you

This cracked me up. I thought I was the only one that did that.

Forest and Trees

It's interesting to see how people's personalities and experiences shape how they approach their job. Prior to being an auditor I was a probation & parole officer for many years. There was a diachotomy within this profession similar to what you see with police and many other professions. Some probation/parole officers were distrustful and punitive. Their expectations of offenders was very high and they had little sympathy for those who didn't meet those expectations. Other officers were not necessarily sympathetic but they recognized the humanity in offenders and tried to work on improving the skills that were needed to survive free of new arrest.

There is some of this in the auditing profession. Some auditors are very focused on detail and ensuring that everything is procedurally correct. The smallest detail, if not followed, deserves to be exposed in an audit report and is as important as any other finding. In effect, they lose sight of the forest for the trees.

One reason I like performance auditing is because you look at the detail but you also consider the totality. Over the years I have found that most employees, probably 99%, are trying to do a good job. They may know how they could do the job better and may be prevented from doing so because management doesn't hear their concerns or there isn't the time and resources.

As a performance auditor you look at what is trying to be accomplished. You examine how the program is trying to achieve it and what is in their way. Sure they may not be following their procedures exactly but there may be a legitimate reason why.

An auditor by the nature of their work has the time to contemplate the alternative. In government, managers and employees have little time to reflect on or redesign services. The craft of the auditor is to observe, study, analyze, and reflect back. I believe that to be effective, an auditor must be able to communicate what we see and how it could be changed. Our job is not to be punitive and shame employees. Our job is to get government to improve.

A Pattern

On a personal note, it's been quite a 24 hours for me. When we were out to dinner last night with my son and his girlfriend, they announced they were engaged. Now that's a pattern as you watch your children go through the life stages that you have passed through. My daughter is off to college this fall and now the engagement. Then this morning I took my husband to the airport to head out to Beijing. That's an outlier.

Patterns

Auditors can come from all types of disciplines. What you bring from one organizational experience can help you understand another organization or service. One of my most "ah-ha" moments was when I was being interviewed for my first auditor position. I was given a chart that showed information about a parking structure. It illustrated parking patterns of long term versus short term parkers. I was asked what kind of questions I would ask if I was going to study the usage. I looked at the pattern of the data and realized it was the same kind of pattern and dilemma that I had studied from my current organizational experience. I was working as an analyst for a public safety coordinating body. A question the criminal justice system always faces is how to manage jail population effectively when some offenders come in for short periods and others stay for months. I don't know if that is why I was hired, but my first response in that interview was "This is just like jails!"