1

The process of bringing order to your procedural documentation starts by defining your goals, reviewing your current documents,and organizing your priorities.  We’ll help you:

• Itemize all functional areas of the business operations that need documentation
• Define all subtopics underneath each area
• Decide on the criteria for prioritizing document creation
• Assign each of your topics to the priority levels you’ve created
• Create our initial high-level task list and schedule

2

Develop your project teams and assign roles and responsibilities.

We’ll work with you to identify SMEs, stakeholders, and peer reviewers. At this stage, we’ll help you determine a plan for creating, reviewing, and approving each document.

Once we’ve identified the parties involved in your document campaign, we’ll conduct a team orientation to ensure everyone is on the same page and understands their role in the process.

3

We’ll help you define your documentation hierarchy. This involves separating the documents into tiers from the most general to the most specific.  For example, a common document hierarchy includes:

• Policies (documents that tell why you’re doing something).
• Standards (the rules, best practices, and regulations that your policies have to meet).
• Processes/Procedures (the work instructions for implementing and enforcing your policies).
• Work aids (handbooks, signs, and other materials that reinforce your processes and instructions on how to use them).
• Records and Reports (the evidence of a work process)

Additional common hierarchical systems are shown below:

However, one thing is key, and that’s making sure each document —whether it’s a manual or work instructions, an SOP or a report — has a clear purpose. The goal is to eliminate guesswork: When employees access any document, they know what to expect.

This may seem fairly straightforward, but it takes a lot of effort to get it right. And you have to remember that within each document type it’s possible for there to be subtypes, which can make this step more complex. Think about your SOPs, for example. You probably have dozens, each one outlining the task to be performed, who will carry it out, and the general process for getting the work done. For example,

• Operational SOPs outline the standard accepted procedures for operating equipment or performing a repetitive technical activity.
• Administrative SOPs explain the typical functional or programmatic responsibilities within a specific job.
• Analytical SOPs document the exact steps and methods in performing a systematic process.
• Methodic SOPs describe a complete testing system or method of investigation.
• Safety SOPs detail all the precautions that ensure a safe working environment.
• Infection control SOPs dictate the precise protocol to ensure devices, equipment, and facilities are cleaned according to medical best practices.
• Change control SOPs provide guidance on implementing and ensuring required organizational changes.
• Quality assurance SOPs detail the steps to maintain and control quality.
• Complaint management SOPs explain how to deal with complaints, from receiving to addressing to archiving.

4

Next, we’ll help you draw up your information architecture. This step involves:

• Deciding how content will be labeled, including naming conventions. Randomly named files can create confusion and make them difficult to retrieve.
• Defining meta data and tags for search, sort, or database features.
• Defining which sections go within each document type (e.g., safety, scope, roles, etc.).
• Creating and completing templates for each document type to ensure consistent delivery of information. These are properly crafted Word documents that:
  • set standards for formatting (type face, font size, margins, alignment)
  • incorporate elements of usability engineering (white space, placement of text and graphics, etc.)
  • define consistent parameters per document section (purpose, roles, safety, references, etc.)

5

We can also help you choose the best Document Management System (DMS) for your needs.

We’ll determine:

• Your preferred document organization
• How users will find and use information
• Required security measures
• Future growth and documentation needs
• Benchmarks for user adoption

6

The next step? Map each current workflow you want to document. We’ll consult with your SMEs to identify current roles, tasks, and handovers within your organization, then create a flowchart to describe each process.

7

Now it’s time to collect feedback. We’ll work with your SMEs or quality assurance team to find out how well the workflows are being implemented. Are they correct? Are the right people doing the right things at the right time? Are there process gaps or overlaps, and where?
If needed, we’ll facilitate conflict resolution. If SMEs provide differing feedback, we’ll run group sessions to help decide on a workflow that works for everyone.

8

Next, we’ll perform a gap analysis that indicates which documents are missing, what has to be created and where updates are needed. Your gap analysis draws from lessons learned during your workflow mapping.  At this stage, we can more easily identify where documentation may be lacking.  We’ll highlight areas of task duplication, workflow inefficiencies, unclear standards, poor instructions for handovers between departments, out-of-date work methods, and incomplete processes.

9

Your gap analysis leads to the master document list.  The master document list includes a full set of deliverables for the project.  For each deliverable, we list all existing documentation that should be leveraged each new (or revised) procedure.

10

We’re almost ready to get to writing.  The project schedule comes next. Depending on the size of your document library, creating or revising all of your policy and procedure documents can take months, even years. But when everyone in your organization is busy, having a firm and agreed-upon schedule may be the only thing that keeps even the most important content from winding up on the backburner.

The Writers For Hire will create realistic calendars for your deliverables. We’ll establish a working schedule with every important date represented graphically, from kick-off through completion. Your entire team will know what’s expected of them and when.

11

At this point (finally!), we’re ready to write new documents or update existing ones, making sure we’ve closed any gaps. We’ll gather pertinent data then break processes down into workable, reading level-appropriate “nuggets” that employees can understand.

We’ll use your style guide to ensure consistency and uniformity (don’t have a style guide? We can create one as we go).

Editing and proofreading as we go will mean every document is perfect, page-to-page, top-to-bottom.

12

Earlier we defined our approvers.  Now we run the approval process. Before publishing your content, we’ll make sure it gets all the proper sign offs.

13

We’ll publish your content into the DMS system we decided upon earlier in our process.

14

We can also help disseminate the updated standards and train employees on how to use and access the new standards, procedures, or instructions. Getting a group of beta testers together earlier in the process is a great way to test your new procedures while getting employee buy in. (Involved and informed employees are more likely to adopt the new systems.)

15

Record the system. We write the rules to manage your document hierarchy, information architecture, and templates, including requirements for:

• A numbering system, including versioning.
• Developing documents.
• Reviewing and approving documents.
• Distributing and notifications of new or revised documents.
• Maintaining documents through a change management process.
• Storing and archiving.
• Annual review and approval.
• Change management, including how to request and make changes to standards, how to control versioning and access, and how to disseminate changes.

16

Finally, we’ll teach your document system owners how to maintain your brand-new document systems.