Best Practices in Policies and Procedures focuses on the best practices for writing clear and consistent content for your policies, procedures, and work instructions. This book shows you how do initial research and how to develop a good workflow to understand the current process and to start finding ways to improve on the current process. From these best practices' methods, you'll create and write clear, consistent, accurate, and reliable policies and procedures that anyone can understand. More importantly, the last chapter focuses on how to find similar examples to your topic and how you might use this information to help you write better policy and procedure documents.
This is the first book of its kind as it shows you how to align the content of your policies and procedures with the vision, mission, and strategic direction of the company.
This book also spends an entire chapter on how to use the Internet to find content for policies and procedures. Additionally, there are tables of contents examples in the appendices that give you an idea of what 15 functional areas put in their policy and procedure manuals. Some of these functional areas include: Accounting, Finance, Human Resources, Purchasing, or Information Technology (IT).
Check for the author's website for further information and discounts: Search Google for companymanuals.
Stephen Page is the author of four books on policies and procedures, each one complementing the other. This set of books is the only work of its kind in the industry. There are other books but they focus primarily on editing and word choice, not on actually showing the reader how to do research, write a draft, get it reviewed and approved, get it published, communicate and train it, measure it, and revise it. These steps are missing in the other books. This author, Stephen Page, has received hundreds of praises from readers saying how wonderful and easy the books are to read and apply. These books will become a part of your reference library and you will be proud to own them. Stephen Page has written three other books that complement this book including Achieving 100% Compliance, 7 Steps to Better Written Policies and Procedures, and Establishing a System of Policies and Procedures. Do yourself a favor and read all of his books. You'll never buy another policy or procedure book. --Process Improvement Publishing
From the Publisher
The author, Stephen Page, has outdone himself on this book, "Best Practices in Policies and Procedures." Mr. Page has done an admirable job capturing the works of published authors as well as the best practices from his own books. Mr. Page is considered a leading authority in the policies and procedures industry, so what better reference to use!
When considering best practices for any effort, think about what the word, "Best Practices," really means to you. Best Practices has several meanings: (1) it can mean what management thinks is the best way to do processes in a company; (2) it can mean what an author writes about or teaches; (3) it can also mean a combination of ideas from many books and ideas. So when evaluating your own processes and practices, decide what constitutes best practices in your own mind; make sure you know what you are expecting.
Mr. Page has an impressive background and he is is well recognized in the policy and procedure industry as judged by the number of great reviews and the few returns of his books. Mr. Page has an MBA, and is certified in four industries. He is also a current author of process improvement articles on the Gantthead.com, a website dedicated to process improvement.
Stephen has written his books based on an extensive bibliography, discussions with current practitioners, and his extensive experience. We think his books fit this category of "Best Practices" in the policies and procedures industry.
Stephen Page is a world-known author and subject matter expert on policies and procedures as well as being an author of other books (FICTION: White House Secrets - Kindle version, NON-FICTION: Yes Dear, You're Right - Kindle version, and NON-FICTION: Putting Secrets for the Weekend Golfer, copyright 1995, published by St. Martin's Press). While the core of his writing centers around policies and procedures, he is working toward becoming a well known author for his two latest books, White House Secrets, a suspense thriller and Yes Dear, You're Right, a coffee table book for men and women who want great relationships and a passionate love life. On to policies and procedures...read ahead for how to get free advice
He has written six books on policies, procedures, work instructions, and continuous process improvement. He has sold his books to more than 114 countries. He regularly speaks on how to write policies and procedures. He consults for large and small companies on how to improve their system of policies and procedures and how to write consistent, logical, and easy to read policies, procedures, guidelines, and standards. He offers a tested and proven method for writing policies and procedures. He offers a free writing format to anyone who asks. He offers FREE ADVICE to anyone who emails him at stevebpage@gmail.com. He is always ready to chat about policies and procedures. Give him and his books a try.
Stephen Page was born in New Mexico in 1949. He graduated from UCLA with an MBA in Management in 1974. He is certified as a project management professional, records manager, software engineer, and a forms consultant. He has written more than 7000 policies and procedures and manuals. He has designed more than 3000 forms. He has worked on projects such as TQM, CMMI, Value Engineering, ISO Quality Standards, continuous process improvement, LEAN, 5S, and the Malcolm Baldrige Award. He was a newsletter editor for more than 7 years at a division of Eastman Kodak and the communications manager for two years.
His current projects include developing innovation control guidelines, becoming an ISO 9001:2008 quality lead auditor, designing a business continuity system, setting up a way to declare email messages as records, designing an archive solution for electronic records, writing new policies and procedures for the Finance department and procedures for the human resources department in India, and developing new documentation processes for CMMI.
He works hard to make continuous improvements to everything he does in business and in his personal life. He has written FOUR POLICIES AND PROCEDURES books over the past 10 years. He wrote these books because at the time he couldn't find any book that could help him write policies and procedures and create a program that would include researching, writing, reviewing, publishing, communicating, training, maintenance, quality improvement, and revisions. He wrote these books to help all the would-be, novice, and seasoned policy and procedure writers. An interesting fact: He has also written PUTTING SECRETS for the Weekend Golfer, a procedures-based putting style.
NOTE: He wrote the Writing Exceptional Policies and Procedures in electronic format only and this book is only available on Kindle today. If you buy directly from him, you can get it free as a part of the 4-book package.
He has developed a writing format that can be used consistently for policies and procedures. The original writing format (page layout for the content of a topic) had six sections. Now 10 years later, the writing format has 8 sections and is likely to remain at that number as these 8 sections contain everything necessary to write clear and concise policies and procedures for any company in any industry, including governmental agencies in any country. He is currently considering a varied format for CMMI-oriented processes and procedures.
His books are widely sold in more than 94 countries, technical colleges, associations, and online bookstores. He has served as a consultant for many corporations, large and small, to help them quickly develop a robust policies and procedures program using a standard writing format.
Each of the four books has its own theme. The best combinations are: (1) Establishing and 7 Steps; (2) Establishing, 7 Steps, and Best Practices; and (3) Establishing, 7 Steps, Best Practices, and Achieving. While these four books are also available on Kindle, the fifth book, Writing Exceptional Policies and Procedures is only available on the Kindle.
This review is from: Best Practices in Policies and Procedures (Paperback)
This fourth book of the author's clearly takes a new direction. His first three books covered the framework for setting up a system of policies and procedures as well as how to write each policy or procedure. This kind of detail does not exist in any of his competitors' books. In this book, the author concentrates on the importance of aligning policies and procedures at any level to the corporate vision and strategy. He goes so far as to show the reader how to become involved in setting corporate strategy to ensure that there is clear alignment between the strategy and procedure. Without this direct tie to management support, the policies and procedures department is typically considered overhead and is the first department to be eliminated in reorganizations or mergers.
I particularly appreciated the second half of this book as I have been looking for an author to write information about what really goes into a policy or procedure for many years. Finding this content has been most difficult. While I am a fairly experienced procedures writer, I couldn't help but feel I was reinventing the wheel since someone, somewhere had to have written similar policies and procedures I could reference. The author provides many ways to find actual policies and procedure content on the Internet, and has referenced more than 150 websites which appear to contain thousands of links to real policies and procedures. I am especially excited about this because as a consultant my jobs change frequently and being able to find sample procedures in various industries will help me out a lot. This book is an impressive effort.
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This review is from: Best Practices in Policies and Procedures (Paperback)
This book is the latest in Mr. Page's series of books on writing policies and procedures, and it the one that ties together his previous work. In particular this book extends his comprehensive "Achieving 100% Compliance of Policies and Procedures" book by adding both a process and an array of examples that policies and procedures writers will find invaluable.
Where his previous books focused on the process of developing and implementing policies and procedures, this one links corporate vision and strategy to policies and procedures. The process to accomplish this is given in four steps (1) define the vision, (2) define the strategy, (3) define core processes that support the strategy and vision, and (4) align the policies and procedures to the core processes. As someone with extensive experience in developing and implementing policies and procedures I can attest that this method is critical to success.
Approximately the first two thirds of the book is devoted to stepping you through the process and does so clearly. I like the way a graphical depiction of the process starts each chapter in the first half of the book to give you a point of reference and to also indicate what remains to be done. The chapter sequence is (1) Vision and Strategic Directions, (2) Building the TOC, (3) Developing Policies and Procedures, (4) Writing Policies and Procedures, (5)Table of Contents Examples and Policy and Procedure URLs, and (6) Epilogue. A great deal of emphasis is given to critical success factors, such as roles and responsibilities and cross-functional team management. I also like the way each chapter ends with a checklist for understanding and references.
What makes this book unique, however, is the last third of the book (Chapter 5), which is a listing of URLs and descriptive information that point to 56 policies and procedures manuals accessible over the web that reflect best practices. Since URLs frequently change, the book has an associated web site that keeps these up-to-date. The descriptive information for each URL includes topic (type of manual), functional area (industry segment), subject area category (what it covers) and detailed subject areas (a summary of the TOC). The best practices reflect most major functional areas, including accounting, child care, church, e-mail, information technology and software engineering, project management, risk management, purchasing, personnel, and more.
The research and effort that went into this book is both exhaustive and impressive. This book is an ideal companion to any of the author's other books, especially if you choose "Achieving 100% Compliance of Policies and Procedures" book. Combined, his set of four books is powerful set of tools for developing best-in-class policies and procedures.
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This review is from: Best Practices in Policies and Procedures (Paperback)
This book is the first of its kind and has aid my team greatly as it shows how to align policies and procedures directly to the company's vision, strategic direction, and core processes. It also shows how to identify and select core processes, another real plus.
The author does an excellent job of showing you how to develop a team to study and implement policies and procedures. He shows you a path from identify an idea to identify best solution to document solution to writing the solution. This is a great chapter. He also integrates his other three books into this book.
In the last half of the book he does a great service to people looking to develop new policies and procedures for those who wish to improve their current ones. He gives great, really great examples on actual policies and procedures in 60 industries.
Great Book!
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