Something I learn from audit

When auditing a subject, the first thing I want to know is who have ownership of it.  I have done a hardware and software inventory audit for my institution and while I identified many exceptions, there were no departments that claim ownership and management of inventory.  I ended up chasing tail over and over and wasted precious time reviewing many systems that had inventory information but does not serve as the official collection of inventory maintained for the institution. Therefore, identifying the ownership of a subject should be one of the first thing to seek for.