7 Steps to a Policies and Procedures Manual – Part 1

A lot of work goes into developing every Bizmanualz Policies and Procedures manual.  We start by conducting…

1. Subject Research

In the not-too-distant past, we primarily searched the Internet for clues as to what people wanted. We’d find what topics people were interested in by doing the same thing you do: searching by keywords.

We’ve matured somewhat since those days.  We’re still conducting online research, but we’re also looking for visitors to our site — readers like you — to tell us what’s important to them.

While our real expertise lies in quality, process improvement, lean thinking, and the like, our most popular policies and procedures (P&P) manuals continue to be on subjects that pertain to every business.  Our Accounting, Computer & Network, Finance, and Human Resources products are our most popular.  In those cases, we identify common practices, look for “best practices” in each instance, distill them, and have subject matter experts review our work.

2. A Design and Development Plan

Early on, we devised a realization plan for our manuals, basing it primarily on clause seven of ISO 9001, “Product Realization”.  We begin with a checklist of all the items we put into every manual (e.g., table of contents, index, introduction).  We then add the particular topics to cover in procedure form, estimate the time and other resources needed to complete each task, and set a target date for each item.

Of course, we use this checklist not only to provide a record of events, but also to determine (in a post mortem) where our design and development process didn’t work as desired, so we can improve the D&D process for the next project.

3. Writing Procedures

Chris Anderson has written about ballistic, controlled, and adaptive processes.  Procedures in our older products tended to describe mostly ballistic processes.  Our more recent products have been improved considerably by the introduction of the ISO process model, the “Plan-Do-Check-Act” cycle.  While it’s not possible in every case, most of our procedures are modeled on the PDCA cycle.

The first step in such a procedure is planning an activity or series of activities, followed by doing the activity and gathering data as the activity progresses.  The third step is the act of checking, or reviewing, the data to see if the process is in control and yielding the expected results.

Gathering data and analyzing them are the most crucial aspects of the PDCA cycle, so we provide guidance for data collection — sample forms (logs, checklists, etc.) – with most of our procedures.

You may adapt the provided forms to your unique circumstances, or you may substitute forms you already use (e.g., ledgers, order forms) for those provided.  Remember — you cannot improve a process that you don’t monitor and measure.

The fourth, but not final, step is acting on the data.  The “act” step is not the ultimate one because the process is – or should be - cyclical.  If you’re doing it right, it’s really a “Plan-Do-Check-Do-Check-Do-Check”, etc., cycle. The data tell you how to act — bring the process back into control or, if the process is in control, either allow the process to continue and keep monitoring or make adjustments to reduce process variation even further.

So, we’ve written this procedure.  We complete it by building in:

• A focused policy statement;
• Roles and responsibilities;
• The purpose of the procedure;
• The procedure’s scope (who/what is affected);
• Definitions of important terms;
• Resources and References;
• A Revision History table; and
• Sample forms, some of which may be required by standards or regulations.

Next week, we’ll look at the remainder of the process, beginning with the document review.

Do you have any questions at this point?  Please feel free to contact us right away.  If you prefer, hold onto your questions until next week when we finish the story.

As always, best wishes and best of luck.

Steve

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Posted on Monday, December 14th, 2009 under Business Process Improvement, Writing Policies and Procedures

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Originally published by Bizmanualz, Inc. under the title 7 Steps to a Policies and Procedures Manual – Part 1.

This and more articles like this can be found at www.bizmanualz.com. This article may be reprinted freely as long as this resource box is left intact.