Seven Cs to Avoid Procedure Writing Errors

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Seven Cs to Avoid Procedure Writing Errors

You do your best to make sure your organization is operating as
effectively as possible. But if your policies and procedures are
incomplete, outdated, or inconsistent, then they are not driving
the performance improvement they should. When employees try to
use incomplete or undefined procedures, waste and costly errors
soon follow.

Case Study: Little Mistakes Add Up Quickly

Without knowing it, employees at a local auto parts company were
having a costly problem determining when to accept customer
credit. The company actually had a detailed credit application
procedure, including an exhaustive error correction routine, but
the procedure had one fatal flaw: it was not properly indexed.

Indexing Improves Usability

Without a way to readily locate and reference the applicable
procedure in the operations manual, employees could not find it
and were simply not using it at all, leading to an inconsistent
process and wildly varying output. Potentially valuable customers
were regularly turned away by some staff members, while others
accepted bad credit risks because they were unsure of which ones
to reject.

A small omission like this can add up to thousands of dollars in
lost sales and good will. Even the most thorough procedures
inevitably have gaps that come from being "too close" to the
process or not following the basic rules of effective procedure
writing.

Profit from Experience

To be effective, procedures must be action oriented,
grammatically correct, and written in a consistent style and
format to ensure usability. These guidelines, along with industry
"best practices" that are documented in auditable criteria, can
be used to improve your procedures:

1.Context. Actions must properly describe the activity to be
performed.
2.Consistency. All references and terms are used the same way
every time, and the procedure must ensure consistent results.
3.Completeness. There must be no information, logic, or design
gaps.
4.Control. The document and its described actions demonstrate
feedback and control.
5.Compliance. All actions are sufficient for their intended
compliance.
6.Correctness. The document must be grammatically correct
without spelling errors.
7.Clarity. Documents must be easy to read and understandable.

Quickly Improve Your Policies and Procedures without the Hassle

You can quickly resolve these usability problems and improve
performance, and also upgrade your documentation to "best
practice" standards without hassles or commitments. By beginning
to improve your documents, you will be able to identify areas for
improvement. And you can start today with the 7 Cs of “best
practices”.