As much as we listen to our customers, we have to translate what we hear into fields on a screen so that software engineers know what to build. Think of it this way: when you say, “I want to easily adapt Bizmanualz procedures for each of my clients”, that could require a bunch of screens.

We have to develop several screens that together enable you to accomplish customization intuitively.  Finally, when you use the screens and say, “Yes, that’s what I was expecting”, your requirement has been met and the loop is closed.

Before we code the screens, we “mock them up” and ask you if you see what you expect, if we’ve included too much, or if we missed something. Here are some tools that help us share mock-ups with you.

Mock-Up Testing Tools

Balsamiq is desktop software that makes it easy to create mock-ups of software screens without having to worry about developing working pages. A marketing guy like me can quickly “draw” pages by dragging and dropping pre-built drop-downs, menus, radio buttons, etc., onto a page. That way, I can show you what I heard you say. I can do this any number of times until you agree that “…that’s what I was expecting!”

Here’s an example:

A simple mock-up contains basic screen functions and regions representing content that you are testing for relevance with users.

For now, you save your Balsamiq page designs onto your local computer, then e-mail them to testers or share them through other online testing tools: soon, Balsamiq is coming out with a really cool online version of their software that will facilitate collaboration within the marketing and development teams and with the customer.

FiveSecondTest is a really easy-to-use online sharing tool for running usability tests of your web screens. You just upload an image of the screen (which you could create in Balsamiq) and submit it for memory or click testing. Testers take the memory test, “recall the five things that you saw on the screen,” or the click test, “buy a book on this page.”

In both types of tests, users perform an action that can be completed within the screen you’re testing and provide you with short written comments explaining their actions.  You can let random people who come to the FiveSecondTest site take your test, or you can send links to testers you’ve selected. In either case, testers can earn “Karma points” on the site that they can spend on their own tests.

If you’re just getting into user  testing, FiveSecondTest is a good tool for sharing and testing simple screen shots.

If you use a Mac, you may want to look at OmniGraffle, a diagramming and charting package. (NOTE: OmniGraffle only runs on Mac, so we can’t use it.) Think of this package as Visio meets Adobe Illustrator. The package has stencils and templates for just about any shape you can imagine, so you can create anything you want. Unlike Balsamiq, it does not appear to be a special-purpose web screen prototyping tool, though it can certainly be used for that. Once you design or import third-party stencils, you can assemble them into web page mock-ups. Though I can’t run OmniGraffle on my PC, I’d sure appreciate your comments if you have any experience with it.

Silverback is another Mac-only application for usability testing. It’s not a web application; instead, it runs on your local computer. Again, because it’s a Mac tool, I can’t speak from personal experience, but I understand it more purely captures actual user behavior while they interact with your web site…which you might want if you’re fulfilling a product or service online and it’s really important that people are happy with the experience, so they don’t go away. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.)

This package (and others that run on PCs) help you capture screen activity, video record participants’ reactions, record their voices, and export video so that you can gather and compare tests. This is not something that you would do your first time testing online user experience, but something you’d definitely want to do as you need to find incremental improvements.

Like FiveSecondTest, Loop11 is another on-line usability and user testing tool. Beyond testing, it has integrated e-mailing to testers (the “invite” feature) and online reporting of test results. If you’re testing multiple screens or comparing the performance of one screen to another, you definitely want some power behind you. Otherwise, you’ll end up in “Spreadsheet City” as you tabulate and summarize your results.

Loop11 claims to support testing in over 40 languages. If you have some experience with online usability testing and if your business depends on your web site, you need a way to manage tests and keep them organized.  If you’ve ever managed e-mail campaigns, you’ll be familiar with managing your several user tests in Loop11.

Each web page is presented to the user with a question appearing in a banner at the top. Testers try to complete a task on the page presented, then move on through the test, clicking to “complete” or “abandon” each page.

Getting Started

If you’re just getting started, stick with FiveSecondTest or simply mailing screens to customers or posting pages in a “backwater” of your existing web site. Call customers or e-mail them some questions and ask them to accomplish a specific task on your site. Call at least two more customers and ask them to do the same. Make note of any “hiccups”, errors, or misunderstandings that occur, even if it’s only one tester who finds problems. (Put the one tester’s problems before the others and they might just respond, “I hadn’t thought of that. Good point.”)

Write down what you learn and give it to your developer, along with printouts of the screens you tested, highlighting problem areas. That’s it — you completed your first test.

As you get the hang of it and run tests with larger numbers of testers, you can move into a more advanced testing tool like Loop11. You might even conduct the same test with two versions of a given screen (old screen / new screen) and see which version testers prefer.

As always, we appreciate hearing from you. Post a comment below or on our web site. If you have any experience with any of the products mentioned above, we’d really like your input.

An alternative to RoboHelp is Flare, produced by MadCap.  Flare supports DITA and XML, independent of whether you use Word or FrameMaker, to maintain your printable documentation.  Some companies are using DITA-based technology to distribute documentation revisions to multiple channels (including marketing collateral).  Adobe RoboHelp with FrameMaker in structured mode supports DITA and XML.  So what are DITA and XML?

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) technical documentation authoring and publishing architecture for creating topic-oriented content that can be reused and single-sourced in a variety of ways.  In other words, you can tag <xmp> your text with special codes </xmp> the xmp tag set indentifies the text as part of an example.  I’m not sure how popular this is today, but it is very portable.  The Internet exploded through the use of HTML (HyperText Markup Language), which is still the predominant markup language for web pages.

Why not just put all your policy and procedure documents into an Access database? If you have the technical skills, you could build your own document management database solution.  SharePoint is an MS-SQL database solution that requires MS-Server administration and SharePoint designer capability.  If you’re using SharePoint, you can add Nintex to provide advanced workflow capabilities.

SharePoint is not perfect, though. Version control is weak in SharePoint. Documents can be edited without a new version being created by simply opening/editing/saving.  It can be difficult getting users to check out documents correctly. Since checking in/out is optional, you need to continually remind your users that they have to check out and check in documents for version control to work.

Authoring and Publishing Workflow

Most companies use an Authoring site with restricted access, where all MS-Word versions are maintained, and a Published site, containing the approved PDF documents that your staff can see. Your policies and procedures workflow will allow you to easily add approvers and submit documents for review and approval. Reviewers/approvers are generally notified automatically (by email, for example) that a document is “awaiting review”. If the notification contains a link to the document, the reviewer can click on that link to retrieve the document for edit and review. You can also designate the final approver, the person responsible for publishing (releasing) the document for general use.

All previous versions of the document should be maintained on the Authoring site for review and/or restoration. A document review log shows all approver comments, revision comments, workflow change dates, and any administrative histories for a document. Reviewers’ comments on version changes should only be visible to people with access to the Authoring site. The end users only need to see the approved PDF version on the Published site.

A robust search capability is critical — many people prefer e-documents because of search capabilities built into them, like Google search.   You’ll also want some form of browsing navigation, perhaps alphabetical or categorical, to give your users options. The same user may come to your policy and procedure portal two different times with two different goals.

Keeping people coming back to your policy and procedure intranet portal will be a challenge.  Try adding a workgroup collaboration section to increase traffic.  Establish a policy that encourages everyone to link to the PDFs on your portal rather than keeping separate electronic or paper copies.  If you bring people to your intranet portal for policies and procedures, you minimize the likelihood of incorrect or outdated policies floating around your office on computers and desks.

Acrobat Professional with Multiple Contributors

PDFs are great for reviewing and sharing documents.  Acrobat doesn’t change the original text, so there’s no problem with multiple contributors editing the same text, overwriting one another’s changes.  Acrobat accumulates all reviewer comments as “sticky notes”, using identifying numbers inserted into the text. You can consolidate all comments by simply answering a prompt for each one making it very easy to review and manually make the changes in Word.  It can be more time consuming for the editor, but it is an easy way to manage comments from multiple contributors.

Now when you print a consolidated version of the PDF, all the comments are annotated on separate, inserted pages for each page of content, with “mapped” numbers tied to the text location making multiple comments on the same text easy to understand.  You can easily share your final copy (with change summaries) with all contributors. And of course, this review technique works for all document types, not just Word. Use it on Visio process maps and your reviewers won’t even need the Visio software.  PDFs created using Acrobat Professional preserve embedded hyperlinks.  But, if you use Acrobat Distiller, your PDF documents will not have active hyperlinks.

What alternatives are there to Intranet software solutions for developing policies and procedures for multiple departments?  Next, we’ll talk about SaaS (Software as a Service) policies and procedures applications; they can reduce your reliance on your IT department and allow you to “pay as you go” only for what you actually use.

We’ve worked steadily on improving our procedures, using the process model (or the Deming Cycle) as the basis for improvement. The typical business process isn’t static, and your procedures shouldn’t be, either. The best companies are the best because they know “change is the only constant”.

So, procedures that describe processes have to be written with change in mind. That’s what we’ve done, and that’s what you need to do as you move forward, molding the procedures to your company’s — and your customer’s — needs.

So, how do you develop great procedures? With these seven keys:

• Purpose;
• Policy;
• User Involvement;
• Clarity;
• Accuracy and Completeness;
• Feedback and Control; and
• Continual Improvement.

PURPOSE - What’s the goal of this procedure? What’s the point of writing it? What problem are you trying to solve by implementing the procedure?

POLICY - Policy provides the “what”; the procedure provides the “how”. So, what policy do you want carried out in this procedure?

USER INVOLVEMENT - The person who’s writing the procedure may or may not have any experience with the process. The writer doesn’t need the experience so much as they need to ask the right questions. Can they get the process owner to describe the process, and can they convey that information clearly and accurately?

Having to explain the situation forces the process owner to look at the process from a different angle. It makes them look at things in a different light. It may even make them ask, ”Why ARE we doing this?”

Both parties - the writer and the process owner - being full participants in procedure development means a better result for all.

CLARITY - Also known as simplicity, or directness. Don’t put a lot of verbiage or twisted logic in the procedure. Tell the ones who will be involved in the process how it operates and what’s expected of it — and them.

Or, show them. Nothing — not even the ISO 9001 standard – says the procedure has to be in writing. Don’t let language be a barrier.

ACCURACY AND COMPLETENESS - A procedure has to have everything your staff needs to know in order to perform the process well and with consistency. You can’t leave critical steps or information out.

FEEDBACK AND CONTROL - A procedure should follow the Plan-Do-Check-Act model. Don’t forget that “check” step. If you’re not measuring performance and analyzing the measurements, how do you know if the process is in control?

How are you going to know if you’re approaching your goals, or what to do next if you’re not measuring? You can’t improve a process without gathering feedback and acting on it.

CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT - If you plan to write and rewrite a procedure until it’s perfect, you’re wasting your time. Recognize that no process will ever be perfect. Build in room for improvement. Implement the procedure, check it, improve it, and implement the improvement. Keep repeating the process. Remember — the best companies know change is the only constant.

If you have questions or concerns, or you need help, please contact us right away. We measure our success by your successes.

Best wishes,
Steve

This is common for most small businesses, but it’s a cumbersome “system” (actually, it’s not even a system in the true sense) and doesn’t promote easy retrieval or fast changes, and it doesn’t inspire much confidence in your document control “system”.

Document Control Objectives

ISO 9001 (clause 4.2.3) requires a document control process which demonstrates that your documents:

• Are approved prior to use;
• Are reviewed and updated (and re-approved);
• Changes are identified;
• Relevant versions are available at their “point of use”;
• Are legible and identifiable;
• Distribution is being controlled even when they’re of external origin; and
• Aren’t in use when they’re obsolete.

You could say the same for your record control (ISO 9001 4.2.4) process, too.  Plus, there are implied requirements for document backup, security, and scalability.  How well does your manual file server document control system conform to the document control objectives?

Manual File Server Document Control System

Managing policies and procedures to comply with the document control requirements of ISO 9001 is a little different.  Do you approve your documents with a written signature and scan the approved document into your file server as a PDF file?  Some keep a separate transaction log of approvals and reviews, while others type in an approver, reviewer, and author’s name into the document and leave it at that.

Tracking changes, revisions, and relevant versions is very cumbersome in a manual system.  Most people keep an archive folder for the older files.  It’s a good idea to use MS-Word’s “track changes” feature to show what has changed since the last revision.

Maintaining relevant versions at point of use and controlling distribution of externally originating documents (customer drawings, regulatory compliance,  standards materials) is very tricky - and time consuming - in a manual system.  Printed materials are difficult to keep updated in the field.  How do you ensure that the electronic files on a file server are easily accessible or retrievable?  Some use a desktop shortcut to a “Quality Documents” folder; others use a drive letter (ex., “M:\”).  Either way, it’s still a manual system that’s difficult to keep up-to-date.

While these approaches may — or may not — work, they’re based on the time-honored manual system. It’s easy to fall out of compliance by missing a step.  Relying on paper or e-mailed notes, or on people’s memories, or on their ability to focus on that one task when there are dozens of things to do can — and often does — result in some of the commonest audit findings. Unapproved or outdated procedures, uncontrolled copies, inaccessible or lost documents — these problems haunt a lot of firms at audit time.  How can you prevent these kinds of audit findings?

Document Management Software

Document management software, or DMS, provides more than just file serving.  Your document management software provides the level of document and record control that ISO 9001 requires.  Some key features in DMS that you should look for include:

• Offsite backup, for quicker disaster recovery;
• Security to control access to your documents using groups roles, or individual permissions;
• Full system text search and fast document retrieval;
• Complete history of all revisions, including comments, dates, and authors;
• Document workflows, clearly showing reviewers, approvers, and release dates;
• A flexible platform that can grow with your business, be customized, and lets you design and build in new features;
• Support multiple file types, allowing scanning, importing and complete record control;
• Hyperlinking, attachments, and custom views to simplify usability; and
• User analytics, feedback, and acknowledgement to demonstrate documents are used and policies are understood - and followed - by every employee.

You eliminate many of the headaches of a manual document control system by using document management software for your ISO 9001 document and record control.  No more transaction logs, missing manual steps, confusion over obsolete documents, or lost or misplaced documents.  Easily add employees, disk space, documents, and records without involving your IT department.

Interested in learning more about the benefits of automating your document control system?  Contact Bizmanualz, and learn how to simplify.

Control of records and documents is critical to compliance.  ISO 9001 requires document control, record control, and specific procedures that clarify how you are maintaining control.  HIPAA requires access control.  Sarbanes-Oxley requires access and revision control.  Document and record control are at the heart of many of the various compliance schemes businesses encounter.

If yours is a small business, you’re probably using one of two basic solutions: manual or server based file sharing to control your policies and procedures.  The manual system consists of a series of file cabinets that contain your business policies, procedures, documents, and vital records.

Everyone is familiar with these legacy systems.  In fact, most businesses still use these today, even though they may not be very secure, are hard to back up, and take up a lot of storage space (especially the older files that are kept offsite).  As a business grows, it may find that retrieving vital procedure documents and records can be a nightmare.  Yet, we stick with paper documents and filing systems because the up-front cost is considered inexpensive, paper is easy to use, and we’ve always used it.  Unfortunately, manual systems don’t scale very effectively — just ask your doctor.  But, what’s the alternative?

Modern businesses use some form of file server to store and share their policies, procedures, documents and records.  A file server is often a shared hard drive on your local area network (LAN).  Shared drives have several advantages over manual filing systems.  They are searchable, don’t take up as much space, and can be made somewhat secure by restricting access using various file permission schemes.  But, shared drives require training (to various degrees), it can be difficult to index non-text files (images), and they require back-up systems to prevent accidental changes or deletions.  And, as soon as you add an electronic back-up system, you’ve just increased the complexity of the solution dramatically.

Enter document management software.  Using document management software provides more than just file serving.  Your document management system (DMS) should provide the document and record control that most compliance standards require and do it in a more user-friendly environment.  In other words, you should get more benefits for less work.

What do you get with document management software?

• Back-up / disaster recovery
• Security / access control
• Search / document retrieval
• Compliance / record control
• Revision / document control
• Approval / document workflow
• Consistency / ease-of-use and training
• Flexibility / scalability
• Filing / record scanning

Your document management system should resolve many of your document management and record control issues which, in turn, should provide the support for more effective policies and procedures deployment.  If you’re not using document management software today, you should consider what you’re missing — and what you won’t miss once you’ve converted.  Look around your office — if you have a lot of file cabinets in use, maybe it’s time to upgrade your document management system to the 21^st century.  Maybe it’s time to start realizing the benefits of a modern document management solution.

A few — such as high-level, or corporation-wide — policies are designed to promote desirable consequences for an organization, as well as prevent undesired ones.  In this article, we’re going to stick with the first kind.  In any case, the best policies give everyone in the organization a sense of purpose and direction.  So…how do you write a good policy?

Undesirable outcomes are best solved by taking corrective action.  And how do we take corrective action?  Or, to put it another way, how do we develop good policies?

ONE - Describe the problem in clear, concise language.  Get several views of the problem — no one sees everything and everyone sees the same thing differently.

“Why, a four-year-old child could understand this report.
Run out and find me a four-year-old…I can’t make heads or tails of it.”
(Rufus T. Firefly, “Duck Soup”)

TWO - Once you’ve begun to understand the problem, delve into it further by looking for its root cause.  A commonly used tool for discovering root cause (because it’s simple, effective, and time-tested) is “5Y”, or “the five whys’”.  You know how children wear you down by continually asking you “Why?” (”Why?…Why?…Why?…Why?…”)  That’s sort of how you use “5Y” — you keep asking “Why?” until you’ve found the root cause of the problem.  It’s called “the five whys” because nearly all root causes are identified by the fifth “why”.

“You can look it up.” (Casey Stengel)

By then, it should be obvious that a one-time “quick fix” won’t  solve the problem.  The bigger challenge is how to keep the problem from recurring.  Well, that’s where policy comes in.  It’s a high-level look at the situation.  What are we going to do (or not do), what do we want to achieve (or avoid), and, most of all, why?

What happens when you tell your child, your spouse, or your coworker, “Just do it!”  First thing out of their mouths, of course, is “Why?”, as in, “Why should I do it?”  It’s a reasonable question, so why not answer the question before they ask? Doing so at the outset will save you countless (and sometimes massive) headaches.  When you get buy-in from stakeholders, your compliance rate goes way up.

THREE - A policy merely summarizes the corrective action system.  You might call it the “cornerstone” of a corrective action system.  The corrective action itself is the heart of the system, a system that follows the “Plan-Do-Check-Act” model:

• PLAN the corrective action;
• DO, or implement the action and collect data;
• CHECK the corrective action - see if the data prove that the corrective action is effective or not and if not, change what doesn’t work…or make changes because “good” isn’t “good enough”; and
• ACT - continue with the system unchanged, because it’s yielding the desired results, or implement the revised system.

In case you didn’t notice…document that corrective action process and - voila - there’s your procedure!

FOUR - Identify roles and responsibilities with respect to the policy.  Don’t just say “the company” or “we” (unless, of course, you’re dealing with a high-level policy, which we’ll get into at another time).  The last thing you want to hear is, “I thought you were going to do it!”

FIVE - Once you’ve developed a policy draft, have a reasonable number of stakeholders review it.  You might think those who are responsible for carrying out the policy and enforcing it have the greatest stake…and you’d be right, but you can’t overlook the other employees, including management.  No one’s working in a vacuum.  For instance, let’s say you’re working on a purchasing policy.  Give them time to make comments but make the end of the comment period absolute.  You can always change it - nothing, not even policy, is set in stone. Focus on continuous improvement, not delayed perfection, especially if it takes forever getting a policy “perfect”.

“Don’t worry about perfection — you’ll never achieve it.“ (Salvador Dali)

SIX - Revise the policy as needed and get Management’s approval - which should be easy, since you’ve had them involved in the policy-making process.  (You did get them involved, didn’t you?)

SEVEN - Not part of the development process, per se, but its logical conclusion: Distribute the policy, instruct your employees on it, and put it into practice. Do, check, and act.

You may have noticed that each of our Bizmanualz procedures has a policy statement.  Those are purposely vague because we don’t know our customers’ exact situations, requirements, or objectives. As we often say, “We’ve laid the foundation — you build on that.” Obviously, your policy statements can’t be vague.  Your employees need to know exactly what to do and why.

To quickly sum, you need to identify the problem, figure out what caused it, develop a system to prevent the problem from recurring (or lessen its likelihood) and enact it, and summarize that system in a policy statement.  And don’t forget — you need to review your policies regularly to ensure that they reflect the current and future state of your business, not what used to be.

One more thing…

“Have fun storming the castle!” (Miracle Max, “The Princess Bride”)

4. Document Review & Approval

Even before our Quality Management System was ISO 9001 certified, we observed ISO 9001 requirements for product review.  It just makes good business sense, doesn’t it?  You wouldn’t release the first draft of a web page, a prototype, your first take in the recording studio, or a brand-new web app without reviewing it, would you?

In our case, we’ve come up with a straightforward plan for product realization.  It’s a task list (Figure 1) that starts with defining product requirements and “ends” with gathering feedback from customers.  We identify the resources required at each step and set a target date for completing each task.

Figure 1

We then prepare the first draft of a document, conduct a review, use the review notes to revise the document, and review the revision(s). Eventually, the procedure is approved and we go on to other project tasks.  This review-and-approval cycle is applied to every document in the P&P manual.

A NOTE OF CAUTION: When you develop your own procedures — whether you use our product, someone else’s, or decide to go it alone — avoid the classic analysis paralysis, or delayed perfection, trap.  Try too hard to get a document perfect and you’ll never release it.  It will never be good enough.

Go for “good enough” and improve the document as you go.  ISO 9001 acknowledges the fact that perfection is impossible — that’s why there’s a continual improvement clause (8.5.1) in the quality standard.

5. Putting on the Finishing Touches

Of course, procedures aren’t the whole story when it comes to building “policy and procedure” manuals.  Every manual has a table of contents, an introduction, a “manual preparation” section, and an index.  Each of those also goes through a review-and-approval process.

Once we’ve completed the manual content…we still have a lot of work ahead of us.  We take the Microsoft Word files comprising the manual and bundle them into a single PDF file for our printer-servers — that file has to be reviewed and proofread, too.

“Install” copies of the manual (one for CD, the other for download) must be made and tested.  If the manual in question is part of a bundle — let’s say we’re including it in our CFO Accounting Policies and Procedures set — there’s another set of “install” copies.

Two control copies of the manual are printed and kept in the main office. Web pages (e.g., shopping cart, information page) are updated, keywords are purchased, a “press release” is prepared, and a brief announcement is prepared for the weekly e-newsletter.

The product release is formally announced, the new product is given a prominent spot on our website’s homepage, and the product is released for purchase.

6. Releasing the Product

Chris Anderson, our Managing Director, reviews the Realization Plan and, when he’s satisfied all pre-release tasks are completed and documented, indicates his approval for release by signing the Plan form.

In advance of the release, we prepare a number of promotional pieces (e.g., announcements, introductory offers) and release them just days in advance of the product release to get some buzz going.

7. Your Feedback

After the product has been on the market for about three months (give or take a day or two), we begin to solicit feedback from purchasers of the product.  Actually, if you order a printed manual, we ask for your feedback from the moment you open the box.  The CD-ROM is affixed to a letter of introduction, in which we ask for your input.

We need your feedback — good, bad, or indifferent.  Feedback is the key to continual improvement.  If your customers don’t tell you anything, you keep on going as if there is no problem — at least, until the product isn’t selling.  (And wouldn’t you prefer knowing well before that?)

Getting customer input — and acting on it — is what makes an OK product good and a good product even better. So, I’ll close this article with a plea: Let us know what you like — and what you don’t — about our products and services.

If we’re doing well, tell your friends and business colleagues.  If we’re not, tell us.  At Bizmanualz, product and process improvement is our business: Improving our processes to serve you better comes first.

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

That’s when your boss says, “Process? Did I say ‘process’? I meant processezzz! Plural!”  And before you can blurt out, “What do you mean?”, the boss says you need to develop procedures for all accounting processes, not just the one.  Oh, and he wants them by the end of the month!

A weak “Sure, boss…” escapes from your lips as “el jefe” turns and leaves, but an instant later, you’re thinking, “No way!”  You can’t possibly get all your accounting processes documented that quickly!  Or can you?

Break Down the Documentation Process into Its Component Parts

Start by mapping out the business process you need to document.  The process map acts as an outline for your procedure writing: you have to know the steps in the process that need documenting before you start writing.  With process maps in hand — one for each business process — you’re ready to start writing procedures.  Here’s where using pre-written procedures can save you time.

How You Can Use a Pre-Written Procedure to Save Time

If you’re looking for sample accounting procedures for your accounting processes, the Bizmanualz CFO Accounting Policies-Procedures Manuals set contains many sample accounting procedures you can use as starting points.  The CFO bundle contains 239 prewritten accounting procedure templates and 373 accounting forms, organized into five functional areas, or business manuals.  The CFO set covers the ten core accounting cycles.

Once the manuals arrive, the next step is “find an example procedure - a model for the one you need to write”.  All Bizmanualz procedures are in Microsoft Word format and can be easily tailored to fit your specific business process.  Let’s say you’re writing a procedure for vendor acquisition, or the “new vendor” process.  Where would you start?

The vendor process map you wrote shows eight steps:

1. Evaluate business requirements;
2. Identify qualified vendors;
3. Interview, Inspect and test vendor;
4. Review results and approve vendor;
5. Order from vendors;
6. Log orders and delivery performance;
7. Review performance against specifications; and
8. Vendor-related corrective and preventive actions.

Accounting Manual Index

The Accounting Policies, Procedures, and Forms manual contains a Vendor Selection procedure that you can customize.  How do you find it?  In the back of the manual, you’ll find the “Index”.  Search the index for your keyword, “vendor”.  (You could also look through the table of contents in the front of the manual.)  You find the Vendor Selection procedure, containing three steps, or activities (Vendor Selection, Vendor Inspection, and Vendor Files), in the “Purchasing” section.

Your process consists of eight activities, so you expand the prewritten procedure, adding the other five steps, or otherwise modify the Bizmanualz procedure to reflect your actual situation.  Add your process map (a handy visual aid) to the front of the procedure, and you’re done!

Writing a new procedure can take between 4 and 40 hours, depending on the complexity of the process you’re documenting and whether forms are required.  The complexity of a process, as well as your level of expertise in that subject, determines the amount of research — into standards, laws or regulations, references, and the like — you need to do.  Forms also require time and effort to research and produce, assuming you don’t already have them.  The Bizmanualz Vendor Selection procedure contains six pages of forms, including a detailed vendor inspection checklist.  Many Bizmanualz procedures also include a “References” section, which can help you as you research certain topics.

Let’s say this is a 40-hour procedure to create, with forms.  If you use the Bizmanualz procedure, with minor modifications you could have the same procedure ready in less than a day, saving yourself a great deal of time (and your eyes, a lot of wear).  Using a single procedure, saving 38 hours of time off the 40 you planned on, practically pays for the entire five-manual CFO series.

And you’re going to find more than one procedure you can adapt to your business requirements.  Most companies find dozens of useful procedures, which translates to hundreds of hours of time saved, before you factor in the opportunity cost of waiting for the procedures to be completed.

So, the next time you need to write procedures fast, take a look at the complete collection of Bizmanualz business policies and procedures.  Get your procedures project done now…before the end-of-month deadline your boss gave you.

Last week, we identified three elements that drive up your cost of compliance: cost of improvement, cost of review, and cost of scale.  Your cost of improvement can be managed by the improvement projects you choose.  Your cost of review is a relatively fixed, ongoing yearly expense, based on your cost of scale.  Your cost of scale defines how expensive your entire compliance program will be, now and in the future.  Ergo, the more procedures you write, the more expensive compliance becomes.

How Do You Keep Your Compliance Costs Under Control?

Writing procedures for internal control can produce diminishing returns.  Every procedure written carries with it a lot of overhead.  Overhead in this case consists of more than the original documentation effort — the design and development.  It includes implementation and review — document control, training, usage, auditing, management review, and regular updates.

Writing more procedures costs more money; it also reduces risk, but only up to a point.  The point of diminishing returns is where the time and effort you spend on a task stops yielding rewards.  You reach a break-even point, and when you reach that point varies according to your situation.  The common perception is that as you write more procedures, you reduce risks (compliance risk, for instance) further. This would be true if you followed all implementation steps; the reality is that most companies do not follow all implementation steps.

Any implementation step you leave out increases your risk; you lose all the intended benefits of your procedures.  You might think you’re saving money by foregoing certain steps in the implementation process.  Think again.  The opportunity for quality defects, customer complaints, and material weaknesses rises when you take shortcuts.  The likely result is a corrective action loop due to user complaints that your policies and procedures don’t work.

Starting with a clear, compact scope is key to controlling your compliance costs.  The size or scale of your operation — the number of operating locations, number of employees, and the number, complexity, and interconnections of processes — means more risk management, internal controls, and processes to be understood, documented, and controlled.   Learn to pick your battles — focus on the most important processes first!

Map out your core processes with a “big systems perspective” process map.  ISO 9001 certification requires six procedures — document control, record control, internal auditing, control of nonconformities, corrective action, and preventive action — so if ISO 9001 certification is what you’re after, start with those processes.    Sarbanes-Oxley compliance is risk-based, so identify the greatest risks to your company, prioritize them, and write procedures that address those risks first.  This will give you the greatest return on your procedure investment.

Quality defects are to ISO 9001 as financial risks are to regulations like the 8th EU Directive and Sarbanes-Oxley.  You can reduce the scope of your compliance program by addressing the areas with the most defects or the greatest risks first.  As legislative bodies and enforcement agencies have often said, you shouldn’t try to address everything all at once.  Start by reviewing the materiality of the defects or risks to your company.  Decide on a threshold, or cutoff, for materiality.  Don’t worry if you miss the mark on your early attempts: Improvement is an ongoing process, not an event.

Be agile and think about the speed of your procedures implementation.  Most process procedures projects stall because they’re overtaken by current events.  Immediate business needs take precedence, of course, but you risk losing focus and that sense of purpose with your procedures project when you shelve it, so you’re less likely to achieve compliance or those other benefits you were looking for when you took on the project in the first place.

Only write procedures you know you can implement fully.  A written procedure nobody uses is worse than none at all, because of the wasted effort.

Starting with a manageable scope will help you realize your goals and keep your compliance costs down. Work through your procedures incrementally; next year, lower your risk threshold and address more risks, then a few more the year after, and so on, until you’re comfortable.

Management decides on the internal controls needed to cover the identified defects and risks.  If they decide wrong and pick a threshold that’s too high, you’ve identified a material weakness in your quality or risk control framework.  That can be a very good thing, as long as you work on improving your internal controls.  Do so, and you have a working management system that ensures compliance.  Isn’t that what you wanted in the first place?

Using prewritten procedures saves time researching, writing, and implementing accounting policies, procedures, and internal control.  Download free samples now and get started on your procedure development project today!