What are the best practices for IT auditors to collaborate and communicate with agile teams and stakeholders?

Understanding agile principles and practices is essential for IT auditors collaborating with agile teams. Agile emphasizes customer satisfaction, iterative development, collaboration, adaptability, self-organizing teams, continuous improvement, and face-to-face communication. Auditors should grasp these principles to align their audit approach with agile practices and support the team's objectives effectively.

Exploring effective strategies for IT auditors to engage with agile teams and stakeholders is paramount for ensuring seamless collaboration and communication. Embracing a proactive approach that fosters mutual understanding and transparency can significantly enhance the audit process. Encouraging open dialogue, leveraging technology-driven solutions, and adapting audit methodologies to align with agile frameworks are some key practices worth considering. Ultimately, it's about cultivating a culture of collaboration and adaptability to effectively navigate the dynamic landscape of IT auditing in agile environments.

Consider training for IT auditors on agile methodologies to gain a deeper understanding of the development process and communication styles. Where possible, leverage automation tools to streamline data collection and analysis during the audit, freeing up time for more in-depth discussions with the team.

Agilidad no aplica solo para TI sino también para áreas fuera de la misma. Prácticas que considero que ayudaran a fortalecer relación y comunicación , son las siguientes: Entendimiento del marco ágil: Es fundamental que los auditores de TI comprendan los principios y prácticas ágiles. Comunicación abierta y transparente: Se debe fomentar una comunicación abierta y transparente entre los auditores de TI, los equipos ágiles y las partes interesadas. Participación temprana en el proceso: Los auditores de TI deben estar involucrados desde las etapas iniciales del proceso de desarrollo ágil. Esto les permitirá comprender mejor los objetivos del proyecto, identificar posibles riesgos y establecer controles adecuados desde el principio.

Planning audits in short cycles and adapting to changes is key for IT auditors working with agile teams. Agile emphasizes iterative and incremental delivery, and auditors can apply similar principles to their audit planning. By breaking down the audit into smaller, more manageable tasks and conducting audits in short cycles, auditors can provide timely feedback and adapt their audit approach based on the team's progress and changing priorities. This approach helps auditors stay aligned with the agile team's work and ensures that audit requirements are met in a timely and efficient manner.

In my experience, we learnt that you need not to include current sprints or releases (cycles) to your audit scope and a prior completed sprint is still viable to audit and provide feedback to current processes. For example, if a deliverable from a prior cycle included lessons learned and need to implement the changes, those conclusions can be assessed how they are included in the current cycle processes.

Using agile tools and techniques for audit execution and reporting can help IT auditors collaborate more effectively with agile teams. This includes using Kanban boards for task visualization, conducting sprint planning meetings to align audit objectives with team priorities, holding daily stand-ups for progress updates, conducting retrospectives for process improvement, using collaborative documentation tools for real-time feedback, and providing continuous feedback to the team. These practices help auditors adapt their audit approach to align with agile practices, improve collaboration, and deliver value to the organization.

Engaging with the agile team and stakeholders throughout the audit process is essential for IT auditors in agile environments. This involves early engagement to understand objectives and challenges, regular communication through various channels, adopting a collaborative approach to understand processes and risks, establishing a feedback loop for input on findings and recommendations, being transparent about the audit process and outcomes, and engaging with stakeholders to address their expectations and concerns. This approach helps auditors gain insights, identify risks, and provide relevant and actionable recommendations to support the team's objectives and improve audit effectiveness.

When collaborating with agile teams and stakeholders, consider these best practices: Value and Quality Focus: Prioritize project deliverables that align with business goals. Ensure quality assurance throughout the agile process. Learn and Adapt: Continuously improve your IT audit practice by observing agile methods. Embrace flexibility, adaptability, and iterative feedback. Remember, effective communication drives successful collaboration!

You can still be agile with individual audits but benefits will multiply if your entire department adopts an agile framework, and it may not even have to be Scrum.

Agile projects are not budget/cost, time, and requirements limitless As an IT auditor, query into the overall goals of the project based on an understood budget, initial set of overall requirements/goals (which can be high level for a start and refined over time), and overall expected timeline. The agile projects are still bound by and should fit into business objectives that would also include financial objectives.