Modernizing Our MessageEFFECTIVELY COMMUNICATING AUDIT FINDINGS

Old LPA Writing Process

• Significant amount of staff time to create the report

• Significant amount of stakeholder time to read and process the report

• Paper based product with few other ways for stakeholders to consume our information

New LPA Writing Process

• Reduced the amount of staff time to create the report

•Made our reports easier for stakeholders to read

• Created more ways for stakeholders to consume our audit results (native HTML reports, collapsible findings, podcasts)

Overview

Old Writing ProcessRevisions especially brutal (2 rounds)

Internal review 2x as long as draft development.

Days 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Old Writing Process

Findings

To Agency

Revisions Revisions

Outline

Draft

Internal Review

X-Ref

QCR

Old Writing ProcessSome examples:

We had to manually create a table of contents…

Old Writing Processapply numerous font styles (8 shown here)…

New Report ProcessTwo Goals

1. Transition to native HTML reports

2. Significantly streamline our reports and writing process

Two GoalsWe wanted to transition to native HTML reports because:

• Easier to distribute

• Easier to search

• Can include links

• Accessible on mobile devices

• Can include video and audio

Two GoalsWe wanted streamline our reports and writing process because:

•We wanted to get our reports to our stakeholders faster

•We wanted to increase readability

How We Got Here•We aimed for short stories instead of a novel.

•We put a cap on our content.

•We simplified our problem finding layout.

•We significantly reduced background information.

•We sacrificed connected and eloquent narratives.

New vs. Old Writing ProcessDays 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Old Writing Process

Findings

To Agency

New Writing Process

Findings

Rev

Outline

Draft

Internal Review

X-Ref

Outline

Draft

Internal Review

QCR To Agency

Time Saved

Revisions Revisions X-Ref

QCR

The Results• Under our old writing process, our reports averaged about 40 pages.

• The last four reports we’ve produced under the new process have averaged 17 pages.

• In July we released our first native HTML report with our consolidated format.

Communicating Beyond Words•Tell a story

•Use different mediums

28%

Source

Of cases, visuals have a positive benefit

Visuals improve information synthesis by

Source

Infographic Resources• Flaticon•Noun Project • Canva•Adobe Spark • Piktochart•Visme

As of February 2015, the DEA had expended $10.1 million of this funding for the Global Discovery aircraft. The DOD has also expended an additional $67.9 million in DOD appropriated funds to modify the DEA’s ATR 500 and to construct a hangar at the Kabul International

Airport in Afghanistan for the aircraft. Even though collectively the DEA and DOD have spent more than $86 million on the Global Discovery

program, we found that, over 7 years after the aircraft was purchased for the program, the aircraft remains inoperable, resting on jacks, and

has never actually flown in Afghanistan.

$86 MILLION, DOES NOT FLY

Video

Video

Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com

Video

Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com

Source

Podcasts

Explanatory Narrative Narrative

Social Media