7 Steps to Effective Auditor Training

A five-day lead auditor course is never enough. Effective auditor training must include practical feedback from an experienced auditor.

Recently, a client asked me to create a training course on how to train operators. I could have taught the operators myself, but there were so many people that needed training, that we felt it would be more cost-effective to train the trainers. Usually, I have multiple presentations archived that I can draw upon, but this time I had nothing. I had never trained engineers on how to be trainers before—at least not formally. I thought about what kinds of problems other quality managers have had in training internal auditors, and how I have helped the auditors improve. The one theme I recognized was that effective auditor training needs to include practical feedback from an experienced auditor.

How do you audit the auditing process?

Most quality managers are experienced and have little trouble planning an audit schedule. The next step is to conduct the audit. The problem is that there is very little objective oversight of the auditing process. The ISO 13485 standard for medical devices requires that “Auditors shall not audit their own work.” Therefore, most companies will opt for one of two solutions for auditing the internal audit process: 1) hire a consultant, or 2) ask the Director of Regulatory Affairs to audit the internal auditing process.

Both of the above strategies for auditing the internal audit process meet the requirements of ISO 13485, but neither approach helps to improve an internal auditor’s performance. I have interviewed hundreds of audit program managers over the years, and the most common feedback audit program managers give is “change the wording of this finding” or “you forgot to close this previous finding.” This type of feedback is related to the report writing phase of the audit process. I rarely hear program managers explain how they help auditors improve at the other parts of the process.

When auditors are first being trained, we typically provide examples of best practices for audit preparation, checklists, interviewing techniques, AND reports. After the auditors have been “shadowed” by the program manager for an arbitrary three times, the auditors are now miraculously “trained.” Let’s see if I can draw an analogy that will make my point…

That kind of sounds like watching your 16-year-old drive the family car three times and then giving them a license. I guess that’s why my new Ford Festiva was severely dented on all four sides within six months. You may think my father was a Saint, but I think he might have totaled his tenth car by age 18. At least I contained the damage to one vehicle.