Inside the April issue:

Question of the month: How can management benefit by implementing a strong set of policies and procedures?

Find the answer at the end of this newsletter.

BY Chris Anderson
April 29, 2005

Our topic this month was policies and procedures development. Policies and procedures can be developed for a variety of reasons like increasing consistency, fulfilling compliance requirements, communicating effectiveness measures, decreasing error rates or easing replication for growth.

Procedures for Control

Procedures are primarily about decreasing variability and increasing process control. Management wants control—management control, process control, internal controls, or controlled outputs. Policies and procedures provide the foundation for control that management wants and that regulators or auditors demand. Internal control is considered to be a critical element of corporate governance.

Read more about procedures and management control…

Procedures for Results

Procedure writing project can be broken down into four phases: discovery, design, development and deployment. A procedure describes one or more steps of a business process. So before you start writing the procedure, you need to discover what is expected from it. In the design phase you should create a process map which shows the steps in the process/procedure and its inputs and outputs. A. procedure walk-through ensures that the procedure is accurate and can be used effectively

Read more about writing procedures for results…

Procedures for User Groups

During development, it is important to know who the users of the procedure are. For frequent users, the priority is navigation more than explanation. The headlines, subheads and checklist are the most important points. Explanations are important to the occasional users who may need a reminder as to the how and why of a procedure. Novices are learning the procedure for the first time and need step-by-step instructions. Procedure deployment involves training, auditing and continuous improvement of the procedure.

Read more about the users of policies and procedures…

Procedures vs. Policies

A policy is a guiding principle in an organization and often used for decision making. Policies can be rules, frequently used as employee policies, or mini mission statements associated with procedures. A procedure is a particular way of accomplishing an objective, usually designed as a series of steps for consistent outcomes. Together, they are used to empower a process with the direction and consistency necessary for successful process improvement.

Read more about the difference between policies and procedures…

By driving performance improvement and providing a systematic approach to implementation of policies, plans and work routines, policies and policies can improve your overall results. A properly developed policies and procedures manual benefits you by conveying management philosophies, improving communications, reducing training time, strengthening operations and reducing training time.

You can learn how to improve your organization by attending the next How to create well-defined processes or ISO 9000 Lead Auditor training classes offered by Bizmanualz.

Reader Feedback

As always, we thank you for your feedback and words of encouragement. One of you wrote:

“This is a good, concise explanation of the difference between policies and procedures. I am forwarding it to the rest of my company.”

We thank all of you for your comments and feedback. It is perfectly alright to forward our articles to your friends, colleagues or anybody else that might be interested. Please keep your feedback coming. Contact us with any comments, questions or relevant stories.

On That Note

Answer to this month's question:

Procedures help produce consistent outcomes thereby decreasing variability and increasing process control. A controlled process is what management wants and can achieve by implementing well-written policies and procedures.

In the weeks and months ahead, we will continue to bring you useful information and helpful tips pertaining to policies, procedures and processes. Let us know if you'd like any specific topic addressed.

Best regards,
Chris
Bizmanualz, Inc