Who's Afraid of Circulars and Procedures?
- Anat Kosiyak
- Feb 1, 2008
- 5 min read
"How can anyone read this circular letter?" "Only the person who wrote the procedure has time to read 10 pages..." Who among us hasn't heard such statements in the organization's corridors. Most contemporary organizations are based on procedures and circular letters. The origin of procedures lies in Weber's concept of "institutionalizing work processes in an organization in a way that preserves its stability over time"... True, organizations cannot exist without procedures and circulars - which regulate work processes and establish order in communication and internal organizational work interfaces. Organizations are especially required to register international standards such as ISO 9001/2 quality standards, CMMI, and others.
However, over time, organizations have become managed by procedures and circulars. Writing procedures and circulars seems to have become the goal instead of a means to regulate work processes in the organization. In many cases, this is accompanied by bureaucratization (not in the positive sense that Weber conceived and formulated...) including departments of procedure writers, endless paperwork, distribution methods of internal mail or email, and lack of control over the use of procedures and circulars and their implementation in the field. Our experience shows that the need to manage procedures and circulars in the organization is expressed in several dimensions:
Time resource – quickly locating relevant procedures and circular documents, as well as accessibility to the specific information required.
Service resource – making the required information accessible within the procedure and circular letters document to employees of the organization and its customers.
Management resource – a unified language that connects knowledge between headquarters and management to the field and supports the creation of an organizational culture of knowledge sharing
"how can one read this?"
Indeed, the question, "How can one read this?" is valid. Knowledge management responds to this challenge by developing a structured methodology called a 'Smart Template'.
This solution includes three processes:
Process I - Structuring the procedure and circular document (Document's Meta Data). This involves organizing procedures and circulars and tagging them with predefined characteristics, including from the user's perspective. This approach allows quick and friendly access to retrieve procedures and circulars according to various categories (for example, version, update date, contact person, effective date, distribution list, and more).
Process II - Structuring the content of procedures and circulars (Content) in three parts: ○ Part A - Cover page that includes a visual graphic map and links to relevant knowledge items in the circular body. The map imports to the front of the circular, as a gateway, the processed, concise information that is precise for the user. ○ Part B - Circular body that includes knowledge segments that expand on the knowledge items in the map. ○ Part C - Appendices are attached to the circular, and links are provided to relevant circulars. The smart template allows ZOOM IN from the map to the circular body and ZOOM OUT back to the map. This way, the procedure and the circular user can focus only on the knowledge required.
Process III - Learning and implementing procedures and circulars by training the field to shift from reading and printing circular documents to learning and understanding knowledge items and segments. Activities include preparing training kits, accompanying and training procedures and circular writers, integrating learning tools for users, learning tests, managing control and tracking of usage, sampling users to examine satisfaction and effectiveness, continuous marketing of the solution, and more.
So, what does an organization gain from managing procedures and circulars according to this methodology?
The benefits are evident both for the drafters of procedures and circulars as well as for the users who read them:
Clear, concise writing according to defined rules, systematic and precise
Creating uniformity in information transmitted to employees and a shared professional organizational language
Flow of the right information to the right employee according to mapping of target audiences as structured distribution lists of procedures and circulars
A user-friendly template tool that is easy to maintain
Mapping of the organization's professional content domains
Orientation and accessibility to relevant knowledge through a map and finding it quickly
Sounds good, but how can this methodology be implemented?
Establishing a dedicated work team to address this issue is recommended. The work plan will include several stages, for example:
Mapping the types of circulars and developing the required template types
Determining characteristics for circular documents
Building the templates
Training procedure and circular drafters
Integration with technological systems
Implementation and learning activities among users, readers of procedures, and circulars
And just before concluding, here is a reminder:
Why use a template to manage procedures and circulars?
As humans, we use templates as tools for processing information within the frameworks of perception, memory, learning, and understanding. The knowledge management world uses this principle to advance three main goals in managing procedures and circulars:
Creating structured knowledge – The difficulty of creating a new knowledge item from a "blank page" that contains no hints about desired structure and content each time disappears. The template offers the circular drafter a solution by providing hints about the type of knowledge to create and the required logical structure.
Simple orientation for the reader – The difficulty in understanding the spirit of the procedure and its concept and the inability to locate information in response to a specific issue disappears. The gateway map externalizes the knowledge items to the front of the circular procedure. It presents the content of the procedure in a friendly visual form with references and links through which the user can reach the expanded items in the procedure's body.
Orderly understanding of information items – The difficulty in reading and implementing long procedures and circulars with multiple topics disappears. By dividing into stages, levels, and required actions, the reader better understands the meanings of the procedure and circular, as well as the context between the different parts. The uniform template saves relearning processes and dealing with each procedure and circular separately, thereby enabling a successful implementation process.
(For more information: Knowledge Management Templates - What Are They For?)
In conclusion, implementing the management of procedures and circulars using the methodology described above regulates and supports work processes in the organization in a structured and user-friendly manner for all employees (users and policy makers), allows correct and repeated use of procedures and circulars in a central location accessible to all employees, and significantly raises the professional level of the organization. So, let's get to work... Good luck!
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