Stephen B. Page is the author of six books, five of which focus on process improvement, business processes, policies, and procedures. Stephen holds a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) in Management from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He is certified as a project manager (PMP), software engineer (CSQE), records manager (CRM), and forms consultant (CFC).

His employment record contains an impressive list of multinational companies including Nationwide Insurance, Atos Origin, Compuware, Qwest Communications, Boeing Aircraft, Eastman Kodak, and Litton Industries. Stephen has more than 30 years of experience in researching, writing, editing, publishing, communicating, training, measuring, and improving business processes, policies, procedures, and forms. He has written more than 250 company manuals in printed and electronic formats and 7000 policies and procedures. He has designed 6000 forms and has set up manual and electronic form management systems. He has delivered policies and procedures in printed, network, web, CD-ROM, and video formats. He has first-hand experience with Quality Standards, IEEE Standards, the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), Six Sigma, and the Malcolm Baldrige Award.

Stephen has written many trade journal articles. His three most recent articles are “How to Use Processes and Procedures in ISO 9000:2000 Certification” in The Quality Management Forum (Newsletter), Spring 2001; “Chart your Progress” in Qualityworld (Magazine), January 2001; and “Research: The Key to Quality Policies and Procedures” in Quality Progress (Journal), January 2000. Stephen is a skilled presenter, facilitator, and team leader. He has participated on hundreds of team projects. He has presented seminars on the subject of printed and electronic policies and procedures, business processes, process improvement, and forms management.

Stephen has worked in various industries, including insurance, manufacturing, telecommunications, financial banking, research and development, disaster recovery, software engineering, retail, and consulting. He has received dozens of awards for his suggestions for various quality programs.

This book focuses on the best practices for finding content for policies and procedures through your own efforts and from examples. You will be able to reduce your up front research and development time by knowing how to quickly identify and find content examples for policies and procedures. The phrase best practices has come to mean the “best ways to do tasks or efforts” according to recognized practitioners or authors.

For this book, best comes from six sources: (1) the best methods for defining vision, strategic direction, and core processes; (2) the best methods for identifying topics for tables of contents and policies and procedures; (3) the best methods for setting up teams and executing the processes for transforming problems into policies and procedures; (4) the best methods for searching the Internet for table of contents and policy and procedure examples; (5) the best sources for finding table of contents examples and policy/procedure URLs; and (6) the best concepts and principles from my three current policy and procedure books:

The first book focuses on setting up a system, or an environment, for the successful operation of a policy and procedure system. A proven writing format is introduced. The second book is a workbook that focuses on the writing format. This book is an extension of Chapter 4, “Writing Format,” of the first book. The third book provides methods and tools for ensuring the published policies and procedures are followed, applied, measured, and improved.

This new book integrates the principles of my books and best practices from authors and practitioners by giving you step-by-step guidelines for aligning policies and procedures to the vision, strategic plan, and core processes of an organization. You will learn to:

Knowing where to start on a problem, topic, or subject area is one of the toughest problems facing anyone who wants to find a solution to a problem. For example, when a procedures analyst is asked to write on the subject of nepotism (issue of employing two or more related employees), often a little guidance to the meaning of this word and a sample policy or procedure is a blessing.

One of the goals of this book is to point you to table of contents and policy and procedure examples that could give you some clue as to the actual content of policies and procedures! This book starts to solve this problem of “finding content” by providing you sources, search techniques, and best practices for finding content and background information to guide you in the research and development of policies and procedures.

This book emerged from comments of readers who requested examples for policies and procedures for specific subjects such as purchasing, accounting, personnel, or specialty manuals such as childcare or hotel management. In the past, each time readers asked me to provide content for their policies and procedures, I would reply:

I cannot give you policy and procedure examples because the actual content of your policies and procedures depends on your industry; environment; culture; and existing processes, policies, and procedures. You may become dependent on examples and not do your own research. You must identify your own processes and use analysis and problem-solving techniques to derive content for policies and procedures.

While I believe that you must do your own analysis and build an effective team to develop policies and procedures, I have found that there are a number of sources that can make the life of a procedures analyst easier because he does not have to “re-invent the wheel” every time he wants to write a new policy or procedure. Many U.S. government agencies, universities, consulting firms, and specialty organizations publish policies and procedures in accessible websites. This information can be useful because it provides examples of industry-specific tables of contents and policies and procedures to help the procedures analyst better understand a topic. This book accelerates the procedures analyst’s process of identifying appropriate content to begin developing policies and procedures using best practices from various industries.

The real treasure of this book is Chapter 5, “Table of Contents Examples and Policy/Procedure URLs,” because the chapter contains table of contents examples and URLs that point to real-life policies and procedures. The procedures analyst can use this information as “starting points” or “discussion points” for interviews with appropriate managers and employees who support, or have knowledge of, functional areas such as sales or marketing. These examples can be used for reference purposes when researching problems or topics that will eventually be transformed into policy or procedure documents. Without these “starting points,” the procedures analyst faces the dilemma of not knowing what policies and procedures should go into a specific company manual or what information goes into specific policies and procedures.

Regardless of your current job situation, knowing where to begin or what business processes or topics to explore is challenging. Whether you are new to writing policies and procedures or a professional with many years of experience, it can be a frustrating task to find a starting point. With the concepts presented in this book, you no longer have to be concerned about where to start each time you write a new or revised policy or procedure. Either the answer will be clear as to where you want to start working on policies, procedures, or company manuals, or you will know where to find that answer!

Readers should find this book beneficial for several reasons. Some will find that the examples of common policy and procedure topics are invaluable because they help to reduce the amount of up front research and development time. Others will benefit from the detailed chapters on actually building tables of contents and developing policies and procedures using a cross-functional team. Still others will benefit from the 150+ URLs that point to thousands of useful resources and policy and procedure examples. As you move from organization to organization and from job to job, this book can become your bible for helping you get started in any procedures job.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Websites, or URLs, go out of date all the time. If you see a link that is not working, contact me and I will try to help you find another one. Using my Internet search techniques, you should be able to find equally good if not better samples.

CHAPTER 1: Vision and Strategic Direction . Chapter 1 addresses the importance of the alignment of policies and procedures to the vision, strategic plan, and core processes of your organization. This alignment is critical for assuring management commitment and sponsorship. To enhance the knowledge of the procedures analyst, definitions and general guidelines are given for the vision, strategic plan, and core processes of an organization. Techniques are presented for using core processes to derive company manual titles. The company manual title is used to begin building table of contents pages.

CHAPTER 2: Building Table of Contents Pages . Chapter 2 addresses the first most difficult task of the procedures analyst, namely, finding the topics that form the basis for new policies and procedures. These topics become your table of contents or the listing of policy and procedure titles that are the basis of a company manual. These topics are used as “starting points” or “discussion points” for those individuals and teams selected to research and write specific policies and procedures. Five methods are presented for selecting topics that are suitable for the initial table of contents. The importance of Chapter 2 is to build a list of possible topics, policy and procedure titles, and problem statements that support the core processes identified in Chapter 1.

CHAPTER 3: Developing Policies and Procedures . Chapter 3 addresses the second most difficult task of the procedures analyst, namely, developing content from the topics, subject areas, problem statements, or policy and procedure titles in the table of contents. A cross-functional team is introduced as the preferred team type for the development of policies and procedures. Extensive methods and tools are included for (1) conducting team meetings to define the problem statement, diagramming alternative solutions, and selecting a single solution, and (2) starting the policy or procedure documentation process with a proven and standard writing format used by thousands of organizations worldwide.

CHAPTER 4: Writing Policies and Procedures . Chapter 4 addresses the process by which the selected solution identified in Chapter 3 is documented using a standard writing format. This chapter is an overview of the principles and concepts of the writing format from my current books on policies and procedures. A five-step writing process for document preparation and publication is presented as a framework by which policies and procedures are developed and written.

CHAPTER 5: Table of Contents Examples and Policy/Procedure URLs . This chapter contains more than 50 table of contents examples (15 complete tables of contents and over 40 table of contents URLs) and more than 150 policy/procedure URLs that represent the best practices for developing and writing policies and procedures from various industries and organizational departments. These sources, all found on the Internet, consist of topics, policy and procedure titles, problem statements, and URLs that point to examples of tables of contents, processes, policies, and procedures.

1. PROCEDURES ANALYST: For the purposes of this book, the person responsible for writing policies and procedures for an organization is called a procedures analyst . A procedures analyst in a department such as personnel or accounting is only responsible for that area.

3. ORGANIZATION: This term is used to denote a company, firm, or enterprise. Instead of mixing terms, I have selected to use organization when referring to an entire corporation or company. I use department for those functional areas (for example, accounting, payroll, human resources, or sales) that make up the entire organization. There can also be departments within departments.

4. SENIOR MANAGEMENT: The term senior management is used to denote the management that reports directly to the President or Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of an organization. Other terms include top management or executive management.

5. CONTENT: The dictionary definition of the term content is “something contained.” In the context of this book, content refers to (1) topics in the table of contents, (2) policies and procedures contained within a company manual, and (3) words and paragraphs that form the basis of a policy or procedure document. Put another way, content in this third point is the information, diagrams, tables, and processes of a policy or procedure, or anything placed within the body of a policy or procedure document.

6. COMPANY MANUAL: A company manual can be either printed, as in a physical binder, or displayed electronically, as on a network or on an Intranet or Internet website. While a company manual can be “virtual,” for the purposes of this book, the term will refer to a physical binder with printed policies and procedures. I chose this usage because although the majority of organizations publish policies and procedures in a variety of formats, the physical manual is still the most prevalent format.

This book contains theoretical and practical experience, with the emphasis on practical. The purpose of this book is to help you understand the importance of policies and procedures to your organization and to provide easy ways to develop content. You can apply this book in several ways:

Chapter 5, “Table of Contents Examples and Policy/Procedure URLs,” contains examples, 150+ URLs, and instructions that can be used to help you find the “starting points” for writing or revising policies and procedures. More than 60+ URLs reference several thousand policy and procedure examples from a variety of industries.

While I believe that these examples, URLs, and actual policies and procedures will be a great time saver, these materials are not “silver bullets” and you cannot expect to use them without change. Your industry, culture, environment, management viewpoints, and current ways of doing things might be different, and your employees might have their own ideas and opinions.

These materials will be helpful as you integrate them with your own set of ideas and experience. I am giving you a head start; so make good use of this book! Get started now.

Thanks go to the readers who asked for this book. The information contained herein will answer many questions and provide insight into (1) best practices for developing and writing policies and procedures, (2) identification of content for tables of contents and policies and procedures in a variety of industries and organizational departments, and (3) Internet search techniques for locating content and reference materials for the development of new or revised policies and procedures.

Many thanks go to Mike Tarrani, an IT consultant, who specializes in process improvement and IT policies and procedures. He provided ideas that made their way into this book. Mr. Tarrani makes available a wide array of resources from his website at http://www.tarrani.net. Many of these resources directly or indirectly support the approach taken in this book.

I wish to thank Lisa Rosenberger for taking the time to edit this book. I believe that her editing has greatly improved its content and readability. Lisa is a technical writer in the Department of Zoology at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio).

This chapter focuses on the alignment of policies and procedures with the vision, strategic plan, and core processes of an organization. Each component of this alignment continuum is explained to demonstrate the importance for the procedures analyst to gain a foothold in the vision creation and strategic planning processes.

This alignment continuum is crucial because it can guide the procedures analyst in the important task of relating the content of policies and procedures to the vision and strategic planning processes. The procedures analyst can be assured of support for his efforts to create and maintain a system of policies and procedures when the goals and objectives of policies and procedures are evident in an organization’s vision statement and strategic plan. The future of procedures analysts often rests on continual support from senior management.

As you will see, when feasible and possible, the procedures analyst should play a role in the definition and documentation of an organization’s vision, strategic plan, and core processes. While this chapter provides you with the basic definitions for the four components of the alignment continuum, this chapter does not provide complete guidelines for creating a vision and a strategic plan. Refer to the books contained in this chapter and in the “References” section for several excellent books on vision creation and strategic planning.

The phrase alignment continuum is used to describe the relationship of the four components of the alignment continuum (vision, strategic plan, core processes, and policies and procedures). The ideal alignment is linear and starts with a vision and continues with the strategic plan, core processes, and policies and procedures. While the ideal is not always practical or possible, it still should be the organization’s goal to achieve the alignment of these four components backwards and forwards. The development of these components is considered a continuous and iterative process. As each component is developed and published, you should revisit each of the other three components and determine if modifications are needed to maintain the alignment. Once the alignment continuum is established, it is important to retain the linear interactions. For example, as policies and procedures are published, the procedures analyst should assure that:

4. Policies and procedures are a set of documents that establishes guidelines toward accepted business strategies and objectives; and provide instructions necessary to carry out a policy statement. These policies and procedures support the core processes, and provide a framework for planning, action, and decision-making for management and employees.

The books Vision in Action , The Mission-Driven Organization , and Process Innovation are three excellent resources that address the importance of the integration of an organization’s strategic goals into day-to-day management decisions (system of policies and procedures). While the primary aim of the procedures analyst is to satisfy the intent of the core processes, he can gain added management support by demonstrating direct ties from his policy and procedure documents to the vision, strategic plan, and core processes.

In some organizations, the strategic plan, core processes, or even the policies and procedures are developed in advance of the vision. For example, an organization might choose to identify the core processes before tackling the vision and strategic plan. The logic seems simple: How can you write a vision and strategic plan without knowing the primary drivers of the business? Other organizations follow the ideal goal and create the first three components (vision, strategic plan, and core processes) either in sequence or in parallel. Work can be started on the fourth component (policies and procedures) immediately following the identification of the core processes.

Regardless how you develop the components of the alignment continuum, one point is clearif procedures analysts write policies and procedures without regard for the alignment continuum, they will ultimately fail due to a lack of organizational support, management support, or customer buy-in.

A vision sits at the beginning of the alignment continuum. A vision captures an organization’s purpose and values, and controls the destiny of an organization. A common vision defines the benefits a customer, employee, shareholder, or society can expect from an organization. A vision is often written as a single paragraph and is called a vision statement . The vision statement usually has three components (WALL):

The authors of the book The Mission-Driven Organization conducted a study of vital, energetic companies and found that their success is almost always driven by the creativity, enthusiasm, and expertise of their entire work force. The three elements of such success are shared purpose, shared values, and commitment of leadership. These three elements should be reflected in every vision statement.

The development of a vision statement relies on (1) a clear understanding of organizational strengths and weaknesses and (2) knowledge of innovative activities undertaken by competitive companies and other organizations. The vision statement is in the first step in making vision a reality for every member of the organization. The vision creation process is important to the procedures analyst because it can define the principles and values that drive the strategic plan, a document that describes the roadmap to the future and the core processes. The core processes drive the direction of the policies and procedures of an organization.

The procedures analyst should make every effort to align the content of policies and procedures to the vision statement. For example, if a vision statement contains words or phrases such as “provide highest standards of quality” or “we outperform our competitors in meeting our customers’ needs,” the procedures analyst could use statements such as “standards,” “quality,” or “meeting a customer’s needs,” in the body of his policies and procedures.

With a vision statement created, the next step is to create a strategic plan that determines where an organization is going over the next several years and how it will get there. A strategic plan can be thought of as a roadmap an organization uses to achieve the vision. A strategic plan is a comprehensive document of the organization’s purpose and mission, objectives, strategy, and action plan.

The successful implementation of a strategic plan should reduce operating cost; increase customer satisfaction; create a responsive, flexible, and disciplined business system; encourage interdepartmental cooperation; develop opportunities for breakthroughs; empower managers and employees to get things done; eliminate wasteful efforts on projects not in the strategic plan; avoid conflicts in plans for technology, manufacturing, and marketing; and focus resources toward achievable financial goals. The first step in converting a vision into an achievable plan is the development of four or five strategies that add to the plan. Customer loyalty and satisfaction, cost of poor quality, organizational culture and satisfaction, and core processes are the key areas to include in a strategic plan.

With a sound strategic plan, the next step is to develop specific and measurable strategic goals that fall within a set timeusually one to two years. Seven areas should be considered for strategic goals: product performance, cost of poor quality, competitive performance, quality improvement, performance of business processes, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty and retention.

Although there are good books on creating a strategic plan, I am including a reference to an excellent website, called PlanWare , that addresses strategic planning and provides outstanding resources for your use. This useful website includes white papers on business ideas, venture strategies, strategic planning, business plans, planning insights, financial projections, cashflow forecasts, and working capital. Templates are included for most of the white papers.

While the strategic plan is designed to ensure the accomplishment of a vision, one of its key components is the identification of core processes (the rest of this chapter will concentrate on the core processes and not other components of a strategic plan). Core processes support the vision and are the key business drivers of lower-level processes, policies, and procedures. The core processes are used to identify the company manual titles. Refer to Table 1-1 for examples of core processes from three organizations. When defining the core processes of an organization, the identification and quantification of these processes must be considered. These issues are addressed in the next two sections.

1. Identify and analyze the processes, functions, and activities of an organization to determine the major departments or functional areas, for example, marketing, sales, personnel, accounting, or purchasing. The names of these major departments often suggest ideas for core processes.

This issue of how many core processes are “right” involves the question of whether it is the quantity or quality of core processes that matters. A typical organization has 10 to 20 core processes. Others believe that there should only be three processes: developing new products, delivering products to customers, and managing customer relationships. The difficulty of selecting the “right” number of core processes is based on the assumption that processes are almost infinitely divisible; the activities involved in fulfilling a customer order, for example, can be viewed as one process or hundreds. By constricting the number of core processes, it will be easier to identify a manageable set of policies and procedures that support and put into effect desired outcomes.

The appropriate number of core processes reflects a trade-off between managing process interdependence and ensuring that process scope is manageable. Regardless how an organization defines its processes, the results are the same: a list of core processes that becomes the guiding principles for an organization . Whatever the number of core processes identified, the identification process is exploratory, iterative, and continuous.

The procedures analyst has the task of narrowing the scope of the core processes to a manageable scope. This decomposition process leads to a company manual title that typically covers a single area (for example, purchasing or accounting). With a title selected, the procedures analyst can initiate discussions with management, subject matter experts, and users to derive a draft table of contents. Using this table of contents, the procedures analyst should select the highest-ranked topics and form a cross-functional team to transform these topics into policy and procedure documents.

While you can use any method to select titles for your company manuals, I have tried to present a simple way of viewing this decision process. Table 1-2 shows you how a core process could be decomposed into several lower-level processes that eventually become the basis for a company manual title.

The decomposition stops when it does not make sense to subdivide the process further. The point at which a process becomes a title is not always clear. The size of the organization or the number of individuals who will potentially use a company manual might have an effect on the title. For example, in a large organization, the goal might be to create a company manual for each functional area, such as purchasing or sales. In this case, the result would be two company manuals: Purchasing Manual and Sales Manual. In a small organization, it might be management’s decision to combine several or all processes into one or two company manuals.

4. FOURTH COLUMN (Company Manual Title): The company manual title is the result of the decomposition of the core process. For each second-level process, you could have one or more company manual titles. For example, the second-level process “Sell Products” could be covered in a Sales Manual, just as the second-level process “Market Products” could be covered in a Marketing Manual. However, you could also combine “Sell Products” and “Market Products” into one Sales and Marketing Manual. Keep these combination possibilities in mind when selecting titles for company manuals.

Policies and procedures sit at the end of the alignment continuum and serve as the infrastructure of operations for day-to-day planning and decision-making processes.

3. Policies and procedures provide decision makers with limits, alternatives, and general guidelines. In a broad sense, policies and procedures are viewed as a set of documents that are aligned to a set of organizational core processes that are identified as a part of the strategic plan.

You should be starting to realize that policies and procedures are the “lifeblood” for an organization’s vision and strategic direction because they provide the framework for action and decision-making. Policies and procedures are the media through which core processes and lower-level processes are carried out. You might also be realizing that it would be a good idea if you were involved in the identification and definition of the visioning and strategic planning processes at the organizational and departmental levels. In both cases, you are correct in your thinking. Getting involved early in the strategic planning processes for an organization can help you receive recognition from management which, in turn, will help you secure their commitment and sponsorship. With commitment, customer buy-in and user support will be easier to achieve.

Procedures analysts must be proactive in everything they do. They must get involved with all levels of management to make a difference in the development of the vision, strategic plan, and core processes. Getting involved is easier said than done and can be quite a challenge. Senior management often does not see the connection between setting the vision or establishing a strategic plan and creating the policies and procedures that enables these processes to happen. In many cases, procedures analysts have to make it known through their management that the skill set they develop while establishing a system of policies and procedures can be essential to the vision creation and strategic planning processes of an organization.

When the vision, strategic plan, and core processes of an organization have not been defined or published, writing effective policies and procedures can be challenging because both the direction of the organization and management commitment are unclear. Without support or direction, the procedures analyst must develop new or revised policies and procedures based on current management thinking and/or upon his assessment of what policies and procedures should be written. In this case, the procedures analyst can never be certain that he is concentrating on the correct problems, processes, policies, or procedures.

The procedures analyst should take this situation as an opportunity. Generally, those hired or assigned to develop and write policies and procedures should have a background that includes supervision, team building, strategic planning, thinking out of the box, process improvement, business process reengineering, writing, editing, and other types of skills that could prove useful to management in the vision creation and strategic planning processes. The procedures analyst should make it known to management that he has the necessary experience and that he is willing to help with the development, writing, and publication process for the organization’s vision and strategic plan. When I worked at Datatape Incorporated, a division of Eastman Kodak, I was routinely contacted for assistance with departmental visions and strategic plans, in addition to providing advice to senior management on the vision, strategic plan, and identification of the core processes. Through this work, I developed strong working relationships with senior management and with the chief operating officer and president. These relationships helped significantly with securing management commitment and the communication of policies and procedures.

Working with the vision creation and strategic planning processes is a normal extension of the procedures analyst’s job. I have worked in more than 10 organizations, and in 8 out of 10 of those organizations, I either was requested to help with the strategic plan or I was given an opportunity to provide suggestions.

There will be situations when it is not possible for a procedures analyst to participate in the vision creation and strategic planning processes. When this happens, you still should attempt to make your voice known. You have an important role, and there are a number of things you can do to become visible to management, including giving presentations, offering training classes, publishing newsletters, designing posters or brochures to advertise new programs or initiatives, volunteering to participate on process improvement committees, or serving on other teams that have the attention of senior management.

If you do not have the experience needed to help out with the vision creation and strategic planning processes, you should consider enhancing your education and training in areas such as supervision, business strategy, business process reengineering, total quality management, systems thinking, process improvement, or metrics. Refer to Chapter 14, “Looking to the Future,” in my book Achieving 100% Compliance of Policies and Procedures for career and training references. In addition, the procedures analyst should make every effort to keep abreast of current thinking about the development, communication, and implementation of visions and strategic plans. I would suggest reading some of the books that I have listed at the end of each chapter, including those that specifically address vision, strategy, process innovation, and process improvement.

If an organization has defined a vision and strategic plan but has not documented the core processes, it suggests that the core processes were overlooked as an integral part of the strategic plan. By definition, core processes are one of the many components of a sound strategic plan. The existence of the core processes is critical because they provide guiding principles for the “next steps” for the procedures analyst. The four-block flowchart (Figure 1-1) illustrates these next steps:

The procedures analyst can turn this situation into an opportunity by offering his assistance in defining the core processes. The procedures analyst has three options: (1) contact those involved with strategic planning and suggest that the core processes be identified and documented, (2) offer assistance to work with the strategic planners to identify the core processes, or (3) perform internal benchmarking of the major functions of the organization to gain an understanding of what core processes should be defined.

The procedures analyst makes an excellent choice for contributing to the content of core processes because of his involvement in the organizational functions during his normal policy and procedure activities. If the procedures analyst has responsibility for all policies and procedures in the organization, he should have a good grasp of the organization’s common functions. The procedures analyst should refer to Table 1-1 for examples of core processes.

Due to the importance of the core processes to the “next steps” in Figure 1-1, the procedures analyst should relay the urgency to his management that the core processes become an integral part of the organization’s strategic plan!

THE VISION, STRATEGIC PLAN, AND CORE PROCESSES EXIST, BUT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES ARE NOT ALIGNED.

This third situation is most common because procedures analysts tend to overlook the importance of aligning policies and procedures with the vision, strategic plan, and core processes of an organization. The alignment of policies and procedures is critical to the success of the organization for day-to-day planning and effective decision-making. The procedures analyst can do several things to learn how to align policies and procedures to the vision, strategic plan, or core processes of the organization. First, he can study the components of the alignment continuum and understand the importance of each. With a clear understanding of the components, he can determine a plan of action for aligning the content of policies and procedures to the vision, strategic plan, or core processes. Second, he can refer to the example in Chapter 4, “Writing Policies and Procedures,” that examines a “real” vision statement and demonstrates how to align key words with the “Purpose” or “Procedures” sections of a policy or procedure document.

1. The alignment of policies and procedures to the vision, strategic plan, and core processes of an organization is important to day-to-day actions and decisions of management and employees. The procedures analyst is held accountable for assuring the alignment of policies and procedures to the vision, strategic plan, and core processes.

2. The procedures analyst should make every attempt to understand the definitions and usage of the four components of the alignment continuum: vision, strategic plan, core processes, and policies and procedures. This information will prove valuable when aligning policies and procedures to the vision, strategic plan or core processes of an organization.

4. The future of the procedures analyst’s involvement in the policies and procedures function of an organization rests on four factors: (1) continual management commitment and support, (2) involvement in the vision creation and strategic planning processes, (3) being proactive in his approach to problems and challenges, and (4) keeping updated about the latest technologies and principles in areas such as process improvement, total quality management, benchmarking, and problem-solving skills.

Davenport, Thomas H., Process Innovation , Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Massachusetts, 1993.

Gitlow, Howard S. and Shelly J., Total Quality Management in Action , PTR Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1994.

Hunger, David, J. and Wheelen, Thomas, L., Strategic Management , Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1993.

Page, Stephen B., 7 Steps to Better Written Policies and Procedures , BookMasters, Inc., Mansfield, Ohio, 2000.

Page, Stephen B., Achieving 100% Compliance of Policies and Procedures , BookMasters, Inc., Mansfield, Ohio, 2000.

Page, Stephen B., Establishing a System of Policies and Procedures , BookMasters, Inc., Mansfield, Ohio, 1998.

Primozic, Kenneth and Edward and Leben, Joe, Strategic Choices , McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, New York, 1991.

Radford, K.J., Strategic Planning , Reston Publishing Company, Inc., a Prentice-Hall Company, Reston, Virginia 1980.

Tregoe, Benjamin B., Zimmerman, John W., Smith, Ronald A., Tobia, Peter A., Vision in Action , Simon & Schuster Inc., New York, New York, 1989.

Wall, Bob; Sobol, Mark R.; and Solum, Robert S., The Mission Driven Organization , Prima Publishing, Roseville, California, 1999.

Chapter 2

Building Table of Contents Pages

This chapter focuses on the importance of the table of contents to a company manual. With the company manual title defined, the procedures analyst can begin work on a list of topics for the table of contents. These topics are derived from five methods for building table of contents pages. The table of contents is developed, or built, in two stages: draft and final. During the draft stage, the procedures analyst identifies and prioritizes topics, subject areas, policy or procedure titles, or problem areas (hereafter collectively called topics ) that are used as the basis for setting up a cross-functional team to develop and write policies and procedures. These topics become the “starting points” or “discussion points” for the research and development of policies and procedures. During the final stage, the procedures analyst publishes table of contents pages that contain policies and procedures that have been approved and published.

This chapter does not address specific details of a company manual, such as the media type (printed or electronic), the distinction between a policy and a procedure, the binder type and tabs, the electronic file structure, or the number of company manuals. The rest of this chapter focuses on building the table of contents and prioritizing the resulting list of topics.

The company manual is a medium by which policies and procedures are housed. The value of a company manual is measured by a reader’s perception of its use. A reader wants a company manual that:

What the reader gets and expects from a company manual is dependent on the thoroughness of the procedures analyst. If the procedures analyst is proactive and has a goal to write quality policies and procedures, then he will do whatever is necessary to produce a company manual that is well received by his users. A company manual has two states of completion:

1. COMPLETE COMPANY MANUAL : All topics have been identified that satisfy specific core processes. The final table of contents has been created. The topics have been replaced by actual policy or procedure titles. Approved and published policies and procedures are housed in the company manual. The company manual is updated as policies and procedures are measured and improved.

2. INCOMPLETE COMPANY MANUAL : There are two states of incomplete manuals. First, all topics have been selected but not all topics have been replaced by actual policy or procedure titles. In this case, policies and procedures are still being researched, developed, and written. This is good practice because the procedures analyst can concentrate on the development of policies and procedures instead on the further identification of topics for the table of contents. Second, all the topics for the table of contents have yet to be defined. Many organizations like to publish incomplete company manuals just to get something in place. As topics are added or as new or revised policies and procedures become available, the table of contents is updated and the policies and procedures will be inserted in the manual.

The structure of a company manual refers to the method and sequence by which documentation is laid out inside a manual. This structure should be consistent for all company manuals in an organization:

2. REVISION HISTORY PAGE : Each time a policy or procedure is added, modified, or deleted, the change should be recorded on a revision history page. This page also can be used to show improvements to the manual itself, such as when the introductory information is changed or a tab is added.

3. TABLE OF CONTENTS : The table of contents is the final list of policy or procedure titles that correspond to approved and published policy or procedure documents housed in the company manual. There are two approaches to the way the table of contents is published. First, list only those policy or procedure titles that have a corresponding approved and published policy or procedure document in the company manual. Second, list all the known topics and policy or procedure titles. Those topics that do not have a corresponding approved and published policy or procedure document could be notated with the abbreviation, “TBD” (To Be Determined) in the publication date column.

A company manual can be written and published in one of two ways. First, you can write all policies and procedures in the same time frame and publish them as a group. Second, you can write policies and procedures one by one and publish them as they are approved.

The first method is preferred over the second because policies and procedures can be researched, developed, written, released, communicated, trained, and maintained at the same time. More importantly, consistency and integration is more likely when all the policies and procedures are reviewed and published in the same time period. The main drawback of this method is the difficulty of training and assuring compliance of a complete set of policies and procedures.

The second method of writing is a typical practice of many procedures analysts. Writing and publishing policy and procedure documents as they are completed and approved can be an acceptable practice, provided the procedures analyst is following a schedule to complete all the policies and procedures needed to satisfy the intent of relevant core processes. The advantage to this method is that the procedures analyst has more control and more time to monitor the compliance and acceptance of policies and procedures if they are published one by one.

Company manuals can be published in several media: (1) Printed text can be placed in a binder or copied to a CD-ROM; (2) Electronic text can be displayed on a network in a PDF format or on a website; or (3) Policy and procedure information can be transformed into voice and pictures for videotape or into only voice for audiotape. Even if the company manual contains just two or three policies and procedures, the company manual should still be produced and distributed.

Policies and procedures published independently of a company manual often lack a home, and compliance and communication programs are difficult to monitor and maintain. I recommend that you try to publish policies and procedures within the confines of a company manual because maintenance and control will be easier to manage. Refer to my book Achieving 100% Compliance of Policies and Procedures for information about assuring control and achieving compliance.

When the policies and procedures are published and distributed, a memorandum should be prepared that includes information about the policy or procedure documentwhat it is, why it is being published, and what to do with the existing policies and procedures if any of the documents being published will be replacing documents in the current company manual. The most current table of contents, revision history pages, and policies and procedures should be distributed along with this memorandum. The table of contents and revision history pages must be updated whenever any change is made to a manual. Refer to Establishing a System of Policies and Procedures for information on creating and publishing company manuals and table of contents pages. This same method of publication can be used to publish complete company manuals.

The table of contents is an important document in company manuals because it provides a listing of the policy or procedure documents that satisfy the intent of relevant core processes. The table of contents can be one or more pages in length. The number of pages depends on the number of policies and procedures, the size of the manual, and the different ways the table of contents is sorted. When the table of contents is first created, it is considered a draft table of contents. When the company manual is published, the table of contents is considered final and should include the exact policy and procedure titles that correspond to the policies and procedures contained in the company manual.

The design of the table of contents is important to the way a reader navigates through a company manual. When a draft table of contents is first created, topics can be listed in any order, though, at a minimum, I would recommend an alphabetical listing of topics. Placing the topics in categories at the onset also could be helpful for grouping similar topics. For example, if you are writing personnel policies and procedures you could group your topics by primary functions like recruiting, compensation, or benefits. Researching and developing policies and procedures in groups of similar topics instead of one by one will greatly reduce the time it takes to write policies and procedures.

While you can design and publish your table of contents in any way you want, I would recommend giving your readers several ways to find information. While one table of contents might be sufficient for a manual with a small number of policies and procedures, you should consider adding table of contents pages sorted several ways as the number of policies and procedures grows. You can sort your information three ways: by functional categories, alphabetically by title, and numerically by policy or procedure number. For functional categories, think of an organization chart in a department. Categories could be structured along major functional areas. For example, if the organization chart for the human resources department has five functional areas (administration, benefits, compensation, recruiting, and safety), then each of these areas could become a category on your table of contents.

The sequence of the policies and procedures in the table of contents dictates how you set up the policies and procedures within your manual. The set of policies and procedures should be structured in the same sequence as the categories. You could also use tabs to separate the categories in a company manual. The exact location of the documents is not an issue for a company manual housed on a CD-ROM, a network, or a website because search features can be invoked to find specific policies, procedures, or related documents.

There are five methods for identifying topics, subject areas, problem areas, or policy and procedure titles for a draft table of contents. While each method has pros and cons, the best method is a combination of these five. Depending on the collection method, topics might be collected in one of three forms:

1. ACTUAL POLICY OR PROCEDURE TITLE , for example, “Purchase Requisition Guidelines” or “Policies and Procedures Development.” When users are familiar with policies and procedures from previous places of employment, they often will give policy and procedure titles to the procedures analyst rather than a problem statement. They leave it to the procedures analyst to define the problem statement and transform it into a policy or procedure document.

2. SUBJECT AREA , for example, “Payroll Department Instructions” or “Benefits Guidelines.” Sometimes users just “feel” that something is wrong but they are not sure why; they just want the procedures analyst to fix it. In this case, they often give a general topic and ask the procedures analyst to do whatever is needed to produce a policy or procedure document.

3. PROBLEM STATEMENT , for example, “Employees are routinely bypassing the purchasing department for the procurement of stationery items.” Or, “Departments are publishing policies and procedures without going through a policy and procedure approval process.” Sometimes users will be aware of specific problems. In these cases, the procedures analyst can list an abbreviated version of the problem statement in the table of contents; this version will remind him to check his notes for the full problem description. For example, the abbreviated description for the first problem could read “Procurement Problems” or “Bypass Procurement Department Problems.”

The five methods for identifying topics (policy or procedure titles, subject areas, or problem statements) for the table of contents are:

While your goal is to find or define topics for table of contents pages for company manuals, your analysis will also result in background information or examples for potential policies and procedures. Separating building the table of contents pages from developing and writing policies and procedures is sometimes difficult because similar analytical techniques are often used. By considering each of these five methods below, you should be able to gather ample background information whether you are building your table of contents for discussion purposes or developing content for your individual policies and procedures.

I cannot stress enough, “Don’t re-invent the wheel !” If someone else is kind enough to give you examples of tables of contents and, better yet, examples of policies and procedures, take advantage of this kindness and use the information to support the results of the other four methods. Table of contents examples can be a blessing when beginning research on a topic or subject area. Sometimes you will begin work on a topic, issue, or problem and have no clue where to start. I am always appreciative when fellow procedures analysts are able to give me some guidance as to the direction to take for specific policies and procedures. Chapter 5, “Table of Contents Examples and Policy/Procedure URLs,” contains table of contents examples and more than 150+ URLs that point to resources that can help you do policy and procedure research and that point to thousands of policies and procedures examples that can be used for reference purposes. (This information is included in Chapter 5 because the information was too lengthy to include as a section of this chapter.)

In some instances, the table of contents examples are complete and do not need further elaboration except to assure that the topics match the type of processes expected within your industry. You may even find that some references contain more policies and procedures than you think are needed for your organization. Each table of contents example in Chapter 5 contains a list of topics for a specific function (such as personnel or purchasing). When the corresponding URL is opened in your browser, each topic is hyperlinked to a policy or procedure example. These real-life policies and procedures can give you a “starting point” as to the content of a specific topic or subject area. While these examples come from various sources, including universities, U.S. state government agencies, consulting firms, and specialty websites, content from similar sources often provides clues into the topic you are seeking and should not be dismissed as a possible source because you do not think it is relevant to your industry.

As you move from job to job and from industry to industry, you will find that many policies and procedures share common processes. For this reason, you should not rule out policy or procedure examples, regardless of its source. For example, if I am working in the telecommunications industry, an accounting policy from the manufacturing or aerospace industries will provide some clues as to the process and, more importantly, ideas as to the questions that I should be asking when performing my own research. My suggestion is that you refer to the table of contents examples as a source for your table of contents. You can use the referenced policy/procedure URLs for a source of individual policy and procedure examples. If these examples provide you the information you are seeking, the next four methods should still be used to fill in the gaps for the information collected during this first method. Even if you think you have enough information, I recommend that you still review the other methods to assure your readers that you have exhausted your possibilities when writing policies and procedures.

The traditional method for building table of contents pages for company manuals has been to start from scratch, from a “blank slate,” or from where nothing exists. You can use this second method for building table of contents pages in one of two ways: (1) Use this method for gathering supplemental information if the first method resulted in useful information, or (2) If the first method failed to yield valuable information, this method becomes your next choice for building table of contents pages. The starting point for this method begins with the identification of functional areas that affect the selected topic in some way.

The best place to find a listing of functional areas is from organization charts. If organization charts do not exist, the human resources (or personnel) department should be able to provide you with a list of all functional areas in your organization. Once the functional areas are identified, the procedures analyst can conduct interviews with management; subject matter experts; and users who are responsible for, provide support for, or are affected by those functional areas. The procedures analyst can use existing documentation gathered from these discussions to support and reinforce what is discussed or referenced.

An organization chart is defined as a hierarchical relationship consisting of functional areas. The organization chart consists of boxes and connecting lines (Figure 2-1). The lines between the boxes represent the relationships between the people. Generally, the boxes closer to the top of the chart represent higher positions in the hierarchy. For example, an organization’s president or chief executive officer normally appears at the top of the corporate organization chart, with vice presidents or other managers appearing in lower-level boxes.

Figure 2-1 illustrates an example of an organization chart for a purchasing department. For purposes of simplicity, the titles and names of the incumbents for each function have been removed. Each rectangular block represents one functional area within the purchasing department. The procedures analyst can use this organization chart to begin identifying the important processes and responsible individuals for major functional areas within the purchasing department. Knowing how a department is structured in advance of discussions should provide clues about what to ask during your interviews.

An organization chart serves as an excellent visual outline for discussion purposes with purchasing personnel. If you treat each rectangular block on the organization chart as a functional area, your goal is to talk to the incumbent responsible for each area. You could start with the purchasing manager and the three individuals responsible for the “Buyers,” “Purchasing Administration,” and “Traffic” functions. You could then ask for permission to speak to individuals in the next lower-level blocks (for example, “Shipping” or “Receiving”). When talking with this next tier of individuals, you should ask to speak with subject matter experts and with the users who actually do the work. I often try to talk to the users who do the work in a functional area before talking to management. This approach can avoid the problems that arise when managers try to tell their employees what to say when being interviewed. The questions you ask should be aimed at pinpointing the important points of a process. For example, if you are seeking information for different types of purchase requisitions, the resulting topics could be manual purchase requisitions, blanket orders, or purchase cards. The actual content of these topics is developed in Chapter 3, “Developing Policies and Procedures.” Using this purchasing example, some questions you could ask include:

12. I have some examples of table of contents from purchasing departments (from the table of contents examples you should have already gathered). Ask: Can you review the list of topics and check off those that you think are relevant to your area of responsibility and to this purchasing department?

The answers to these and other questions will provide a good start for identifying topics for the table of contents for the purchasing company manual. In addition to these discussions, the procedures analyst should be requesting and receiving existing documentation that could shed light on the topics being investigated. This documentation could include job descriptions for purchasing personnel, processes, policies, procedures, reports, forms, logs, guidelines, standards, or checklists.

This third method can be used to enhance information collected from either or both of the first two methods. The search for the best practices for a table of contents can be accomplished in one of four ways: (1) searching industry and accepted standards for repeatable and consistent processes, policies, or procedures; (2) searching bookstores; (3) searching the Internet for published U.S. federal and state government standards; and (4) benchmarking internal and external sources to find successful and accepted processes, policies, and procedures. Each of these four search techniques is discussed below.

The extent to which you use industry and accepted standards will depend on your industry and the type of processes, topics, or problems for which you are seeking information. A standard is a published document that sets specifications and procedures designed to ensure that a material, product, method, or service meets its purpose and consistently performs to its intended use. Standards solve issues ranging from achieving product compatibility to addressing consumer safety and health concerns. Successful businesses benefit from standards by participating in the standards definition process and by using standards as strategic marketing instruments. Standards also simplify product development and reduce non-value-added cost, thereby increasing a user’s ability to compare competing products. Standards are the fundamental building blocks for international trade.

While there are a number of associations that participate in setting standards, I have selected four well-known standards that apply to almost any kind of business. Refer to Chapter 5, “Table of Contents Examples and Policy/Procedure URLs,” for a list of additional Standards Associations.

1. The “ISO 9000 Series” is an international set of standards that is rapidly becoming the most important quality standard. The ISO 9000 family of international quality management standards and guidelines has earned a global reputation as the basis for establishing quality management systems. The ISO is a network of national standards institutes from 140 countries working in partnership with international organizations; governments; and industry, business, and consumer representatives. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) chose these quality principles because they can be used to improve organizational performance and achieve success. ISO represents a source of ISO 9000 quality standards and more than 13,000 international standards for business, government, and society. Thousands of companies in over 100 countries have already adopted these standards. Why? Because the ISO 9000 family of quality standards provides a consistent set of processes and procedures that have come to be expected by customers and competitors alike. Refer to http://www.iso.ch/ for details about ISO standards.

2. The “IEEE Standards” are an international set of standards that are embodied in published documents; these documents set specifications and procedures designed to insure materials, products, methods, or resources are fit for their purposes and consistently perform the way they were intended. IEEE standards establish an authoritative “common language” that defines quality and sets technical criteria. These standards are the common denominator that organizes our technical world, ensures safety, facilities trade, adds value to products, and helps drive market development. The IEEE website is located at http://www.ieee.org/.

3. The “PMBOK” (Project Management Body of Knowledge) standards, published by the Project Management Institute (PMI) have become an international set of standards for the project management discipline. Project management involves planning, monitoring, and controlling the people, processes, and events involved with a project as it evolves from a preliminary concept to an operational implementation. Project management helps organizations meet their customers’ needs by standardizing routine tasks and reducing the number of tasks that could potentially be forgotten. Project management assures that available resources are used in the most effective and efficient manner and provides senior management insight into what is happening and where things are going within their organization. If your topics have anything to do with project management, a visit to the PMI website will provide you resources for your table of contents and policies and procedures. The PMI website is located at http://www.pmi.org /.

4. The “Capability Maturity Model Integration” (CMMI), published by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) helps organizations worldwide to establish consistent and mature software processes. CMMI applies specifically to organizations involved with software projects. If your topics have anything to do with software, a visit to the SEI website will provide you with resources for your table of contents pages and policies and procedures. This website also includes hundreds of articles, white papers, reports, and other documentation that could prove useful for your research. Visit the SEI’s website at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/ sei-home.html for more information.

Refer to the “References” section in this chapter and to Chapter 5, “Table of Contents Examples and Policy/Procedure URLs,” for sources and additional URLs for the above standards and practices.

Bookstores are often overlooked as a source of information for building table of contents pages. Locating relevant books is difficult unless you know where to look. There are three main sources of bookstores: (1) physical bookstores; (2) online bookstores, for example, Amazon.com; and (3) online association bookstores, for example, IEEE or PMI.

For physical stores, you should begin by narrowing your search to specific topics such as purchasing, personnel, software engineering, or project management. Ask customer service or inquire at the information desk about the best way to locate books pertinent to your search topics. Physical stores are often limited to what are on their shelves and what is published in Bowker’s “Books in Print” electronic catalogue, located at http://www.bowkerlink.com/ . For online bookstores, your search will be much easier than in a physical store because you should be able to enter “keywords” into a search feature on an online bookstore website. Depending on your subject, I would recommend that you use keyword combinations such as “best practices” and “(insert your subject),” or “policies and procedures” and “best practices.” Try similar keywords such as “standards,” “industry standards,” “ISO 9000 Series,” “ISO 9000:2000,” “PMI,” “CMM” “table of contents,” or “policies and procedures.” Use a thesaurus to find similar keywords. Good search engines take pride in being able to offer you many ways to find the topics you are seeking.

SEARCHING THE INTERNET FOR PUBLISHED U.S. FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENT STANDARDS

Searching the Internet for general sources of table of contents and policy and procedure examples is covered in the fifth method for identifying table of contents topics. In this third search technique, the subject has been narrowed to searching the Internet for published U.S. federal and state government standards, processes, policies, and procedures. The rationale is simple: A standard, process, policy, or procedure is not normally published on a U.S. government website unless it has undergone a rigorous review process and receives the approval of a high-ranking official (for example, a governor for U.S. state standards). If the U.S. government can publish company manuals and individual policy or procedure documents on one of its websites, it makes sense to use this information as a best practice for your table of contents, company manuals, or individual policy or procedure documents.

When you search the Internet for U.S. state government standards, I would recommend the following approach: Review the state site by using the standard state URL format: http://www.state.xx.us/ where “xx” is the two-letter abbreviation for a state. For example, Ohio is abbreviated as OH. The State of Ohio website is located at http://www.state.oh.us/. Once at the state website, find the search feature and enter keywords relevant to the topics being investigated. A less obvious way to find this information is to use a search engine such as Google at http://www.google.com or Yahoo at http://www.yahoo.com , and enter keywords, such as “table of contents,” “state policies and procedures,” “state procedures,” “state standards,” or a combination of “(insert state name)” and “procedures” or “standards.”

Benchmarking is a preferred method for finding information for table of contents and process, policy, or procedure examples. Benchmarking, however, can be an expensive endeavor depending on how you go about it and whether you engage in internal, external, or both forms of benchmarking. Benchmarking is not limited to just one facet of an organization’s activities. Benchmarking can be applied to any organization that produces similar outputs or engages in similar business practices. Benchmarking is a never-ending discovery and learning experience that identifies and evaluates best processes and performance. The goal of this identification process is to integrate best processes and performance into an organization’s present processes to increase its effectiveness, efficiency, and adaptability. Benchmarking can be used to identify new processes, policies, and procedures, or it can be used to improve existing policies and procedures. Benchmarking can become the impetus for networking.

Benchmarking is a technique used to analyze information about, and exchange knowledge with, other businesses. Benchmarking has two purposes: (1) seeking out the best practices and innovation in an industry , and (2) seeking out best practices within an organization . The primary reason to undertake benchmarking is to improve upon existing performance in an objective matter. Benchmarking identifies gaps in performance and opportunities for improvement, and it sheds new light on old methods.

While most people think of benchmarking as an external activity, it can be used within an organization as well. For example, there may be one department in your organization that has been exemplary in all aspects; this department could be used as a model for other departments. Many organizations recognize immediate gains by identifying their best internal processes and by transferring that information to other parts of their organization. Internal benchmarking involves looking within your own organization to determine whether other locations are performing similar activities and to define the best practices observed. This type of benchmarking is the easiest to conduct because there are no security and/or confidentiality problems to overcome. In almost all cases, this type of benchmarking should be undertaken first, since it is inexpensive to conduct and provides detailed data. Even better, you can frequently borrow experienced personnel from other locations to help improve your own processes.

Start by analyzing the best of your internal operations. Start with your current organization and do not forget to analyze divisions or sales offices located in different locations. Many organizations have parallel operations performed at the same locations or at different locations throughout the world.

External benchmarking involves looking outside the organization at similar processes in dissimilar industries. Many business processes are generic in nature and application (for example, warehousing and hiring) and can provide meaningful insights despite being used in an unrelated industry. Benchmarking dissimilar industries enables you to discover innovative processes that are not currently used in your particular product types but that will allow your process to become the best of breed. Finding similar industries to benchmark can be difficult because a competitor usually does not want to reveal its current processes and procedures to another competitor.

If you decide that benchmarking is a tool to be used by your organization, you must thoroughly understand your own processes and procedures before venturing out to other departments or organizations. This not only will give you an excellent perspective to work from, but it also will help with your credibility when you are asked questions. When using a new tool, you should make sure that you understand it to avoid being embarrassed by it. Evaluate the elements comprising the processes, policies, and procedures being benchmarked. Identify those elements that:

Benchmarking is often performed as a joint activity with another business with which you share information. Because it can be difficult to find competitors that want to benchmark, try approaching organizations that operate in different business areas. Look for analogous activities in the other businesses, as this often reveals innovative ideas about how to work. Think about benchmarking businesses that have a good reputation, give thorough customer satisfaction, yield high-quality results, are recognized in a field, or show an interest in benchmarking.

Whenever possible, contact the benchmarked businesses. Do not trust everything you read; some facts are intentionally omitted from published reports. You may even find that the happy ending described in a report never happened.

There are some excellent benchmarking websites if you take the time to look. One excellent site is located at http://www.benchmarking.org/ . Another good site is located at http://www.benchmarkingreports.com/ . If any of these links is not valid when you search, go to a search engine such as Google at http://www.google.com/ or Yahoo at http://www.yahoo.com , and enter the keyword “benchmarking.” The first 40 results of a search are the most popular websites.

Networking, or interacting with others with similar interests, is the fourth method for soliciting ideas about table of contents and policy and procedure topics from different organizationsand even from different departments within your own organization. Networking contacts come from a variety of sources, both internal and external, such as training classes, symposiums, associations, business meetings, or even conversations in the hallway or elevator. A little camaraderie can go a long way when you need someone to talk with, and that business card becomes a new source of information. In this case, you would be seeking any kind of help or reference material that the other organizations would be willing to share with you. Sometimes you can get a copy of a complete manual; other times, the contact possibly can steer you in the right direction and provide additional contacts within his organization and in local associations. Obtaining a copy of a table of contents should not be too difficult. Obtaining actual policies and procedures is more difficult because most organizations view internally produced documents as proprietary.

Associations are an excellent resource for networking. The whole purpose behind networking is to contact other people and share ideas. The more people you speak with, the better the chance that you will find someone with answers regarding a table of contents for a specific company manual. These same people can also be helpful when you develop the content of your policies and procedures.

Joining and participating in local associations involved with office administration, records, or forms also can be fruitful. A little known fact is that the records and forms management associations (http://www.arma.org and http://www.bfma.org , respectively) encompass all areas of a business; the members of these associations are likely to have similar interestsmaking them likely networking contacts.

Joining associations that emphasize related interests also can be advantageous. Even if you do not attend their meetings or seminars, membership alone will permit you to access restricted website areas. Within most associations, there are regions, sections, and forums that concentrate on specific areas of interest. For example, if your position lies within information technology (IT) and your job title is Quality Assurance Specialist, you could join associations that concentrate on subjects such as quality, processes, compliance, auditing, metrics, testing, software life cycle methodology, total quality management, six sigma, or the capability maturity model. Within each of these IT associations, you could find sections that are specifically relate to your areas of interest. If you were interested in metrics, you could first join the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and then join a forum devoted to metrics.

Another method is to find URLs for Standards Associations in your industry. An excellent source for thousands of associations is located at http://www.ipl.org/ref/AON/ . Refer to Chapter 5, “Table of Contents Examples and Policy/Procedure URLs,” for URLs that point to 10 well-known Standards Associations. If this “associations” website is not current, go to a search engine, such as Google at http://www.google.com or Yahoo at http://www.yahoo.com , and enter the keyword “associations.”

Searching the Internet for subject areas is the fifth method for building a table of contents for a company manual. The Internet is so advanced that almost everything you could ever want is there, if you know how and where to look. Many of the topics included in Chapter 5, “Table of Contents Examples and Policy/Procedure URLs” were derived from Internet searches. In addition to the URLs provided in Chapter 5, you should spend some time searching the web for information of specific interest to you. For starters, I recommend that you use at least four search engines including: Google (http://www.google.com ), Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com ), Looksmart (http://www.looksmart.com ), and Inktomi (http://www.hotbot.com ). Be creative with your keywords. Write a focused description of your search criteria. Start with a main keyword and then add descriptive words. Write down as many ways as you can to describe the information you are trying to find. Be creative and use a thesaurus for similar keywords. Try words such as policy, policies, procedures, or standards. Try combination words such as table of contents, policies and procedures table of contents, or [insert your main keyword] and combine the search with words like table of contents or policies and procedures.

The five methods for building table of contents pages for a company manual should result in partial or complete lists of topics, subject areas, problem statements, or policy or procedure titles that could be used to develop your policies and procedures. If you have used all five methods, there is an excellent chance you will have a comprehensive table of contents. You might get lucky and find a complete set of table of contents from one of the many tables of contents examples in Chapter 5 and on the Internet. Once you are confident that you have identified an adequate number of topics, you are ready to prioritize them. With these ranked topics, you can select several and use them to form a cross-functional team to research, develop, and write policies and procedures.

With the table of contents topics identified, the procedures analyst should begin prioritizing, or ranking, the topics. Without prioritizing, the most important topics might not be tackled first. The draft table of contents should be put together in a way that assures its acceptance as an agenda for action. Using notes and suggestions from initial discussions with management, subject matter experts, and users, the procedures analyst can prioritize and group topics that can be researched and developed in sequence or in parallel. The procedures analyst usually performs this prioritization process because management holds the procedures analyst accountable for the success of policies and procedures. The procedures analyst is responsible for the life cycle of policies and procedures.

The methods you use for prioritizing the table of contents topics can range from listening to suggestions of experienced users or subject matter experts to using a matrix, decision tree, or criteria rating form (see Figure 3-3 in Chapter 3, “Developing Policies and Procedures,” for a sample criteria rating form). The results of the prioritization process can be inserted in the table of contents, or they can be maintained in a separate word processing document or spreadsheet. Regardless of the method you select for prioritizing the topics in the table of contents, the managers and users who were involved in the initial identification of the topics should be consulted to assure acceptance of the prioritized list of topics. This practice will assure future cooperation and acceptance of the policies and procedures that are eventually published.

Using this prioritized list, the procedures analyst can create a cross-functional team to research, develop, and write policies and procedures (Chapter 3, “Developing Policies and Procedures”). The cross-functional team has the responsibility for developing the actual content of the selected topics and for transforming that content into policies and procedures. With some practice using the concepts suggested in this book, the procedures analyst should find that developing content is a relatively straightforward process. The difficult part is implementing the published policies and procedures and assuring their compliance. For additional information on this subject, refer to my book Achieving 100% Compliance of Policies and Procedures .

1. Create a draft table of contents using the five methods (selecting from table of contents examples, building table of contents pages from scratch, seeking best practices, networking, and searching the web) presented as the best practices for identifying topics, subject areas, problem areas, or policy or procedure titles to be included in table of contents pages.

3. Make early decisions as to the media in which company manuals will be published in your organization. This decision could affect how you research and write policies and procedures; and how you design and publish your table of contents pages.

5. Prioritize the list of topics identified for a table of contents for a specific company manual. Consult the key people who were involved in the initial identification of the topics to assure consensus and to set the stage for future acceptance of policies and procedures.

Bogan, Christoper, E., English, Michael, J., Benchmarking for Best Practices , McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, New York, 1994.

Carnie Mellon University, The Capability Maturity Model , Addison-Wesley, Soft Engineering Institute, Reading, Massachusetts, 1999.

Gitlow, Howard S. and Shelly J., Total Quality Management in Action , PTR Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1994.

Harrington, James H., Business Process Improvement , McGraw-Hill, New York, New York, 1991.

Kerzner, Harold, Ph.D., Project Management , John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, New York, 1998.

McNair, C.J., CMA and Leibfried, H.J., Benchmarking , Omneo, an imprint of Oliver Wight Publishing, Inc., Essex Junction, VT, 1992.

Moore, James W., Software Engineering Standards , IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, California, 1998.

Page, Stephen B., Achieving 100% Compliance of Policies and Procedures , BookMasters, Inc., Mansfield, Ohio, 2000.

Page, Stephen B., Establishing a System of Policies and Procedures , BookMasters, Inc., Mansfield, Ohio, 1998.

Spendolini, Michael J., The Benchmarking Book , AMACOM, New York, New York, 1992.

Watson, Gregory H., Strategic Benchmarking , John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, New York, 1993.

Chapter 3

Developing Policies and Procedures

This chapter focuses on developing the content for policies and procedures. Up to this point, the procedures analyst has painstakingly developed and prioritized the table of contents topics that support specific core processes. The procedures analyst should select the highest ranked topic from the prioritized table of contents created in Chapter 2, “Building Table of Contents Pages.” This topic becomes the basis for establishing a cross-functional team. The procedures analyst can develop content alone or in a team environment, though the team approach is preferred for the development of policies and procedures.

This chapter is devoted to teaching you how to set up cross-functional teams; select team members; conduct team meetings to research, develop, brainstorm, diagram, and identify alternative solutions; select a solution among alternatives; and transform content into structured policies and procedures. Refer to my current books Establishing a System of Policies and Procedures and Achieving 100% Compliance of Policies and Procedures for more information for researching, developing, and writing successful policies and procedures.

Developing content is the process of deciding what information goes into a policy or procedure document. This process starts from the time a topic is selected from the draft table of contents and ends when the topic has been defined, diagrammed, and transformed into a policy or procedure document. The procedures analyst should create a plan of action to set the goals and high-level tasks for transforming the selected topics into policies and procedures.

The plan of action sets the goals, high-level tasks, and schedule for the development of new, or revised, policies and procedures. There is a minimum of 12 steps for a plan of action. You can add or subtract steps depending on the complexity of each topic. The choice is yours.

1. Create a schedule for the development of a policy or procedure document using a project scheduling software program such as ABT Workbench or Microsoft Project. Use a spreadsheet or word processing program as an alternative to using a project scheduling program.

The procedures analyst initiates the schedule for the cross-functional team. As the team is formed and begins its mission, the team members should be asked to help refine the schedule; this practice can help to assure buy-in from the team members.

A team is a group of interdependent individuals who have complementary skills and are committed to a shared, meaningful purpose and specific goals. The objective of building a team is to organize and manage a group of people so that the overall effort is productive and individual members find the experience rewarding. A team has a common, collaborative work approach and clear roles and responsibilities, and its members are held accountable for the team’s performance. A team will reduce the time it takes to get things accomplished and will help to improve the organization’s ability to solve complex issues by using the essential core competencies of its diverse team members. Teams give people a chance to enjoy and benefit from the interaction of joining together in solving problems.

Procedures analysts can choose to develop content alone or with a group of individuals. Both methods work, but the results might be quite different. While developing content alone might work well in a small company, working as a team is the preferred method in organizations with more than 20 employees. In the ideal team, each member performs his function in such a way that it dovetails with those of other members to enable the team to achieve its goals. By this collaboration, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. When team members participate in setting goals, they are more committed to accomplishing them.

The team is a collaborative group, not just people taking orders and carrying them out. A group can develop solutions collectively that the members could not have come up with individually. Teams do not exist in a vacuum; they are a part of an organization with its own vision and goals. A team helps an organization achieve its goals through the vision and the strategic plan. The team’s goals and direction, therefore, must fit into the goals of the organization.

Effective teams display confidence and enthusiasm and seek continuously to improve their performance. The real value of a team is found when a group of minds is able to work on a problem, brainstorm ideas, wrestle with options, and, in the end, create or improve something. Effective teams do not just happen; their members have to learn and use a variety of skills to be successful. No matter how skilled you or the team members may be, there are characteristics that all teams must have to be successful according to Clay Carr, author of Team Power. If a team is lacking just one of the following characteristics, it will face a more difficult time than it should, and if it lacks two or three of these characteristics, the team is probably setting up for failure. These successful team characteristics include (CARR):

If a group is to be a team, common commitment must be a shared vision. Without commitment, the members of the group perform as individuals; with it, they become a powerful unit of collective performance. If a team is going to cooperate, members must see themselves as interdependent, that is, they must see themselves working together, building synergy. A team will not function properly if the members work alone. All members of a team must feel a sense of personal accountability for the outcome of the team’s efforts. This sense of accountability is important for a team committed to defining and developing the content for policies and procedures.

Developing policies and procedures in a team environment has several advantages:

3. Personal growth can be achieved because the team environment challenges its members to use their intelligence, creativity, and skills in working on team goals and assignments. A team environment helps personal growth because it provides:

There are formal and informal teams. Informal teams can be formed on an ad hoc basis to deal with many needs. Casual groupings of people come together to work on an informal basis throughout all organizations. Informal teams follow informal processes. Ideas and solutions to problems can be generated on a more casual basis and processes are less stringent. Formal teams are fundamental to an organization. With formal teams, there are rules and processes to be followed, reports to be made, progress to be noted, and results to be obtained on a regular basis. Teams can be used for a variety of purposes (PELL):

1. WORKING TEAM : Working teams make or do things. These teams do the frontline work of every organization. They manufacture goods, conduct research, design systems, sell merchandise, or keep records. They perform the tasks that are basic to the operation of the organization. Members are assigned to the teams on a permanent basis. Although there may be deadlines established for some parts, most of the work is ongoing.

2. SPECIAL PURPOSE OR PROJECT TEAMS : These teams are formed to deal with situations such as improving quality or cutting cost. They may be created to plan a new company activity, such as introducing a new product or service. They may be appointed to investigate and report on changes in systems or compliance with a new government regulation. These teams are sometimes called task forces or project groups . All members may come from the same department or may be chosen from several departments in the organization. Members may be detached from their usual work for the duration of the project, or they may continue their regular work and function as a special purpose team on a time limit to complete the assignment.

3. CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS : Cross-functional teams are drawn from a variety of different disciplines. A cross-functional team is comprised of individuals who work in functions that “cross” departmental boundaries in an organization. This team type may function on a permanent or temporary basis. The cross-functional team is the team of choice for developing policies and procedures. These teams also are called multifunctional or multidepartmental teams .

4. SELF-DIRECTED TEAMS : Self-directed teams do not have a permanent team leader. All members share leadership. Self-directed teams have been compared to jazz combos or string quartets, musical groups that perform without a conductor.

5. MANAGEMENT TEAMS : These teams make management decisions. In some companies, a management team has replaced the job of the president. In others, the chief executive officer uses a management team to act as a “cabinet” that discusses and reaches consensus on major decisions.

A cross-functional team often comes together for a specific purpose. The cross-functional team is the team type of choice for developing policies and procedures because most business processes cross the boundaries of more than one department; therefore, it makes sense to select team members from the departments affected by specific processes, policies, and procedures.

The cross-functional team brings together individuals with complementary skills from various disciplines or functions and is chartered to achieve a specific mission and project goals. In many organizations, eight or more disciplines work together on cross-functional teams to develop a next-generation computer system, prepare a corporate strategy, or write policies and procedures.

A cross-functional team gets in the act from the beginning and works toward a common goal of transforming topics into published policy and procedure documents. The cross-functional team must agree on a collaborative approach to identify underlying issues and concerns, offer creative and innovative alternatives, work for win-win solutions, view conflict as an opportunity for team growth, help others verbalize their issues and concerns, and encourage others to work together.

The cross-functional team provides an exciting opportunity for the creation of a learning community. As a team brings together people from different disciplines, the learning possibilities are almost limitless. The variety of experiences, backgrounds, and skill sets will increase the probability of creativity within the group. A broad set of skills and perspectives increases the likelihood that their output will meet multifunctional requirements.

CORE PROCESS	FIRST-LEVEL PROCESS		SECOND-LEVEL PROCESS	COMPANY MANUAL TITLE
Sell Products	1	Sales	Sell Products	Sales Manual
	2	Marketing	Market Products	Marketing Manual
	3	Assembly	Make Products	Assembly Standards
	4	Quality	Inspect Products	Quality Control Manual
	5	Inventory	Store Products	Logistics Guidelines
	6	Shipping	Ship Products	Purchasing Policies / Procedures