Our department prepares a balanced scorecard on a monthly basis to track metrics important to our team. We arrange the scorecard into four quadrants: Stakeholders, Controls, People, and Department. Under “Stakeholders,” we track progress against our audit plan (audits in process, reports issued, audit and reporting life cycles). We track our audit ratings and testing exception rates under the “Controls” quadrant. For “People,” we track utilization rates (actual vs. planned) and total hours incurred vs. planned. Our “Department” quadrant tracks our department’s actual spending vs. budget/forecast. Although pretty basic, this scorecard has been helpful in keeping my department’s management team focused on getting through an ambitious audit plan.

I’m still learning. A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Compliance Week conference in Washington, D.C. I learned new terminology — such as “flash crash” and “liar loans” — from the roundup of exceptionally powerful speakers. Much of the discussion focused on the U.S. Senate and House bills being reconciled to bring new regulation to the financial services industry. It is a fascinating time we live in.