We always start our Well-Defined Processes Class by asking the participants “what’s wrong with your policies and procedures where you work?” and we always get the same answers.  Students come to the class from different industries, companies, and geographies and yet we still get the same answers every time.

People tell us how hard it is to keep their procedures up-to-date.  Information gets stale fast and it is difficult keeping procedures current and relevant without becoming outdated.  One reason for this is that the procedures are too long in the first place.  If you have a 35-page procedure then, yes, it is difficult to keep all 35 pages up-to-date.  Especially, if the procedure is unclear, overly complicated or just too difficult to understand in the first place. (more…)

Historically, compliance has been the focus of most knowledge management systems.  Documenting business processes with policies and procedures is required by many standards such as for ISO 9000 Quality Management Systems, Sarbanes Oxley Accounting and Finance, or Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  But if we look closer at the intent of these standards then we see that we should be more concerned with control, to improve quality or reduce the risk of failure. (more…)

Everywhere in your organization people are carrying out business processes to make things happen. It doesn’t matter if the processes are well defined, poorly documented or if the staff is trained. If things are getting done - it is because people are executing business processes. (more…)

Hard-bound books in the ready-to-use procedure series provide concrete examples of prewritten policies and procedures for a wide variety of business and organizations.

St. Louis, MO — November 24, 2008 — Bizmanualz, Inc., a business publications, training and consulting company based in St. Louis, MO, today announced the release of a new series of hard-back books covering topics like Finance, Accounting, Computer & IT, Sales & Marketing and HR. (more…)

When you hear the phrase “internal control system required by Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Section 404,” do you automatically think of policies and procedures?  Simply having accounting policies and procedures does not indicate an internal control system.  Well-written accounting procedures that document well-defined accounting processes, however, are an important component of the internal control system you are building.  (more…)

Our general topic this month is how to get procedures used. Most organizations put at least some effort into creating procedures. Shouldn’t they have a functional role in the organization? Isn’t it a wasted effort if they are just going to collect dust stuck in a binder sitting on a shelf, or if they languish in a file drawer and never see the light of day? (more…)

Last week we discussed how to ensure procedures are used. Along with communication, training and auditing, we brought up the concept of buy-in. We thought the topic of buy-in deserved further discussion. So, what is buy-in? (more…)

Our previous essay listed the typical problems with procedures that we hear from those attending our Well-Defined Processes class. We divided these problems into two broad categories: poorly written and not used. The previous essay also covered problems that fit into the “poorly written” category. (more…)

During our Well-Defined Processes course we spend a significant amount of time talking about procedures. The role of procedures in documenting processes as well as positive and negative attributes of procedures. (more…)

Question of the month: Can you find useful information about policies and procedures on-line? (more…)