The Big Document Roundup

Simple Strategies for Document Cleanup When Faced with a Documentation Hot Mess

So you just learned your team will be treated to an audit review to verify department compliance.?Auditors often review documented policies and processes, and the evidence aligned with them to ensure compliance.?If one employee pulls out an old outdated factually incorrect antiquated dusty document for the auditors?- the team may be faced with a document clean-up corrective action.

This article addresses logical steps to cleaning up documentation and also addresses some of the emotional pain inevitably that will drag along with it. ??And know that teams should not clean up their documentation because an auditor is coming, but because it is, and always was - the right thing to do for the company.

When evaluating a department’s document set, the first thing needed is a discovery to find all related documents anywhere on the intranet. ??The often-surprising list of returned documents, typically reveals outdated, duplicated (if not triplicated or more) content, lacking consistency in appearance and content, conflicting content, poorly worded, and general overall unawareness of some document’s existence.?It begs the question – why keep these documents??The business risk is that employees are not consistent in their quality, because it is not formally documented to support the team’s execution of deliverables.

Just a moment to discuss the psychology of document management.?I have learned over the years there are some that have a genuine fear of document change. I call it the Document Phobia Syndrome (DPS), which arrives in waves of panic with Paul Revere like shouting – “The Document Changers are coming!”. ??

I have experienced significant pushback on changing documents, even when the content is painfully and obviously incorrect. It becomes more intense if you discuss retiring or obsoleting a document.?This pushback is common and requires a document administrator to have solid collaboration and listening skills, coupled with beautiful fact-based reasoning skills.?The remainder of this document addresses how to combat the fearful into fans by developing document management logic & reasoning in three easy steps.

1.??????Develop a Document Control Policy: An executive once asked me why I would create a policy that tells me how to do my job. It addresses the real risk of outdated, poor quality documents, that lead to the unaware and untrained delivering or supporting the delivery of products and services. It helps to show that document management is critical business and can support those in a pushback battle to update documents.

Some of the chapters I include in my document control policy:

·??????Document Type:?State what types of documents must be controlled and keep it simple.?In a perfect world, I would have Policies and Procedures, and a template for each, and that would be the end of it.?Create as many as you like but do define the purpose and create a template for each one.?If you feel compelled to create templates for policies, processes, procedures, charters, work instructions, guides, standards, job aids, operations, training and plan documents, make sure your future authors understand why each is different and special in the long list of approved document types.

·??????Document Hierarchy:?Now that you have your list of document types, which is the overseeing document??Policies typically win out here as an overarching document.?This helps when content is conflicting across multiple document types, as only one can be the winner.

·??????Reviews: How frequently should reviews occur? Where do you list the document reviewers? I typically have a table in each template with the list of reviewers and departments.

·??????Approvals:?What level of seniority should documents be approved? Who approves Policies??Who approves Procedures??How many? HINT: Less is more.?I typically require an executive to approve policies, and a senior manager to approve all other types.

·??????Communication: How do you ensure your audience is aware??Is there training that must compliment the document??

·??????Publishing: Is it stored in a Single Source of Truth??What are the naming conventions for the Title? Filename? Etc.

·??????Obsoletion: What is the procedure for retiring documents into the sunset??Who can do it, and consider adding a Gap Analysis and collaborative review for the decision to retire the document.

2.??????Conduct A Gap Analysis: The gap analysis addresses duplicate and conflicting content.?If you have the original document set as part of the initial discovery, coupled with what departments believe are the true set, you will find conflicting and repeating content.?This is simple work but often time-consuming.?In excel, create a column for Title1 & Content1, and another entitled Title2 and Content2.?Repeat as many columns as possible.?Then collect the documents and sentence by sentence, fill out each column.?I have done entire policies this way, so that a simple search & find, reveals how many times a given term or statement is reiterated.

3.??????Plan to Obsolete Documents:?One of the main reasons teams agree to obsolete a document is because it’s content is no longer needed, a duplicate document was created with another name, or it has conflicting content with another higher document.?Remember the hierarchy of documents??Which document trumps another when there is duplicate content??This will all be revealed in the gap analysis, along with your recommendations.?Prepare to share the results and provide your guidance on next steps towards obsoleting those pesky old, outdated, troublesome, auditor’s playground type of documents!

A Word of Caution: I have seen lightbulbs go off when I speak of this simple strategy to organize content, go awry when leadership realizes the depth of document chaos they are now faced to correct.??Don’t allow an instinct to over-correct to take over your document management program.?Try to avoid forcing all document reviews and changes into a long 100 step bureaucratic procedure just shy of an act of Congress, with several potentials for endless review loops that can never be escaped.??

Keep the cleanup review and decision process consistent, clear and timely.

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