Writing Policies and Procedures for your Organization

Bizmanualz Solutions

Question of the month: Why is a phased approach useful when you are writing policies and procedures for your organization?

Our topics in November revolved around writing policies and procedures. Properly written policies and procedures can go a long way towards standardizing processes. In addition, procedures can help replicate processes in a consistent manner by facilitating employee training and enhancing communication.

Policies And Procedures Can Help Your Organization

There are page-long lists of why policies and procedures are necessary, but, of course, such long lists lose meaning and value. By the time you read to the bottom, you don’t remember what was at the top of the list. Plus, such long lists have too much overlap and repetition. The purpose for creating an internal control system through defining and documenting processes with well-written procedures boils down to a few very basic reasons.

Why Do You Need To Write Procedures

Another way to address the question of “why procedures?” is to use the analogy between procedures and other controlled documentation such as a manufacturing Bill of Materials. Manufacturing companies need a very controlled Bill of Materials because they want to ensure that every product has all the right parts assembled into it. They don’t leave it to chance, and they don’t want just anyone to be able to make changes, allow substitutions, etc… Such unregulated activities could have a severe impact on product quality and customer satisfaction.

Read more about the need to write procedures…

Read Chris Anderson’s article on Writing Policies and Procedures at work.com.

What Procedures Should You Write

Creating dozens and dozens of procedures is usually not necessary. In fact, such an approach can create more problems than it resolves. They can’t be found, they aren’t used, they aren’t updated, and a glut of uncontrolled copies are scattered throughout the organization (a non-compliance in many audits). If you are just starting a project to create or update procedures, selecting what procedures to write is an important early step.

Read more about the procedures you should write…

Understanding why you are writing procedures helps you understand what procedures to write. In the first pass of the building a control system of policies and procedures, the highest priorities of compliance, organizational needs, risk management, and improvement should be addressed throughout the organization. Then, in a second phase of development, the next tier of priorities can be addressed.

On That Note

Answer to this month’s question:

When writing procedures, it is best to begin with one department that has mature processes. It is also important decide which processes are more important and begin with those. Tackling one department with mature processes makes is easier to address issues with design, writing, and implementation, instead of trying to deal with such issues broadly across the whole organization. You can take these lessons learned and avoid such pitfalls when you move to the next department. In the long run, starting slowly in a focused way can produce dividends, and make for a smoother, more efficient documentation project.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments. Our policies, procedures and processes articles site has tons of useful information. Also, please let us know if you’d like any specific topic addressed in our future articles.

Regards,
Chris
Bizmanualz

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