ISO Audit Group / Findings

Closing meetings that do not become negotiations

Findings are reported, not agreed.

The closing meeting reports what was found. It is not a negotiation about whether a finding stands, and it becomes one when the auditor presents findings tentatively or has not evidenced them well enough to hold.

Factual corrections are legitimate and should be welcomed: if the auditor has the date wrong or missed a record that exists, that changes the finding. A disagreement about interpretation is different and should be recorded as such rather than resolved by attrition.

The auditee should leave understanding each finding well enough to explain it to somebody who was not there, since that is who will be assigned to fix it.

Positive observations are worth reporting and are frequently omitted. An audit that reports only deficiencies gives management a distorted picture and makes the function harder to sustain internally.

The report should follow quickly. A closing meeting followed by a report three weeks later loses the momentum and arrives when the people involved have moved on.

It is worth adding that the closing meeting should include whoever will own the response. Findings delivered to a quality manager who then relays them to operations lose their evidence and their emphasis in transmission.