1. WHAT is a policy and procedure
2. WHY should you document a policy and procedure
3. WHEN and WHO should document a policy and procedure
4. HOW to document a policy and procedure
5. TEMPLATE for a policy and procedure
This post is on WHEN and WHO should document a policy and procedure...
I'm coming at this topic from the perspective of high growth tech startups as that's my background.
A startup let's remember is an organisation whose purpose is to uncover a viable and repeatable business model. Once a viable and repeatable and business model is understood and proven the task is to exploit that opportunity and become profitable.
In this context a team may grow from the founding team to 10 people to 30 people to 100 people to 200 people very quickly.
In the earliest stage of a startup, policies can be controlled by direct real time decisions by the founders. Procedures are not yet known as the business model is in flux and the whole team is in experimental mode.
There's little point in creating a body of policy or procedure until..
i) the business model is understood
ii) the team is growing and more than 2 people are doing any one job
iii) processes and methods start to become stable and repeated
The WHEN dimension therefore coincides with the point at which the company starts to scale. That's what makes it challenging. Studying the policies and procedures at the same as growing a team is a demanding task. There's enough to do (interviews, training staff, setting up office space and tools) without having to worry about writing down policies and procedures. There comes a point at which the payback in the medium term is worth the sacrifice in the short term. The task of a COO is to judge that moment and prioritise creation of policies and procedures appropriate to the stage of the company.
Not everything needs doing at once. There are customers to serve and revenue to generate. Inevitably some policies and procedures are more important than others. There's no formula for that, only good judgement.
WHO should write the policies and procedures?
This will depend on the organisation of course. The way I think about it, the person accountable for the quality of the work should draft the policies and then delegate the drafting of the procedures to the person responsible for the team carrying out the majority of the activity.
(For more details on the difference between accountable and responsible see this post. In short, accountable = "the buck stops here" and responsible = "the do-er").
By asking the person responsible to write up the procedure it achieves 3 things;
1. That gaps of knowledge are uncovered and details are added
2. That the person writing the procedure will more likely adhere to it
3. That the person writing the procedure will more likely make others adhere to it
The accountable person needs to read, question, review simplify and/or elaborate upon the draft and approve it for publishing.
Both people need to then create a plan to instill the policy and procedure within the team with education, training and controls.
In the example of a customer care team, the customer care manager (responsible) might draft the procedures based on policies provided by the COO (accountable).
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