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Seven Cs to Avoid Procedure Writing Errors |
by:
Sean Battles |
You do your best to make sure your organization is operating as effectively as possible. But if your policies also procedures are incomplete, outdated, or inconsistent, then they are not driving the performance improvement they should.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 also costly errors soon follow.
Case Study: Procedure 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, however the procedure had one fatal flaw: it was not properly indexed.
Indexing Improves Procedures Usability
Without a way to readily locate also reference the applicable procedure in the operations manual, employees could not find it also were simply not using it at all, leading to an inconsistent process also 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 also 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 Process Experience
To be effective, procedures must be action oriented, grammatically correct, also written in a consistent style also 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 also terms are used the same way every time, also the procedure must ensure consistent results.
3. Completeness. There must be no information, logic, or design gaps.
4. Control. The document also its described actions demonstrate feedback also 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 also understandable.
Quickly Improve Your Policies also Procedures without the Hassle
You can quickly resolve these usability problems also improve performance, also or else 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 seven Cs of “best practices”.
About the author:
Chris Anderson has over 18 years of sales, marketing also business management experience working with business process design, software also systems engineering for over ten years - consulting with companies large also small. He is or else co-author of policies also procedures manual products, assisting in the layout, process design also implementation of the information.
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