The secretary knocked sharply on Clark Dailey’s office door. Clark was the audit manager in charge of an upcoming audit of corporate investments. He was reviewing a report prepared for an audit that had just been completed. When the secretary entered, she seemed a little confused and said that several financial executives were waiting in a conference room on the 14th floor for the auditors who had scheduled an opening conference that morning.

The executives had been waiting for more than 15 minutes. The secretary asked what she should tell Bill Merkley, the vice president of finance, who was on the phone asking where the auditors were.

Clark knew that this audit of investments was important and that his director, William J. DeVries, was especially interested in attending the opening conference. The normal practice had been for auditees to respond in writing to the final audit report. Mr. DeVries wanted to be sure to discuss a new policy with the financial executives. The auditors would be issuing a follow-up evaluation of the auditees’ written responses. He knew this would be a sensitive issue and planned to discuss the need for appropriate responses to audit findings in order to avoid unfavorable follow-up evaluations. Mr. DeVries, however, was on vacation, because Clark had told him that the opening conference was scheduled for the following week. Clark’s calendar also showed the opening conference scheduled for the next week.

Clark hurriedly pulled together some preliminary notes and audit programs to take to the opening conference. He and Janet Knox, the audit supervisor who was assigned to the audit, went to the conference room. Needless to say, he was unprepared, appeared more than a little confused, and was somewhat disheveled. Janet also was unprepared.

Consequently, the opening conference served little purpose but to make the financial executives irritated. They insisted that Clark had called one of their departmental secretaries to set up the appointment. She had informed each of them the day of his call, and they all had the same day and time on their calendars. More than 15 minutes of the half-hour meeting was spent discussing the mix-up in scheduling. They never discussed the new followup procedures.

Required:

a. Discuss what went wrong with this opening conference.

b. How might the difficulties of this opening conference have been avoided?