| BCM document quality control Ray Liepa details what’s required for quality control of business continuity management documents.
I don’t think so! Why? Several reasons, and most of them are worthy of comment and consideration. Let’s start at one of the basic requirements before looking at some of the nitty gritty niceties. Who else has read through this document? You, as the author of the document, have (hopefully) been very close to all the information gathering stages: meetings, interviews, workshops, site and facility inspections etc. You have written the report from your understanding and viewpoint, based on your exposure to the whole organisation (or at least to the extent of the agreed scope) and the mound of information you have gathered. When you have created a report like this from scratch, you were probably exposed to each set of information a number of times; when you first received it in whatever form, as you collated and analysed it, as you assessed it, as you wrote the first draft, as you modified and updated the draft, and as you read through it (again). You feel thoroughly comfortable with the information now and with the way you have written it, and that could be your downfall. It is somewhat akin (and this might not be the best analogy, but think about it) to looking at a several storey glass windowed building to check if all the windows are closed. How do you look at it; to see if all the windows are closed, or to see if any are open? It can make a difference to the outcome and what you “see”. A similar situation can arise when you read through the document and are assessing information that you have seen a number of times before. You expect to see or read things a certain way, and that is what your brain tells you actually is there – what you expect to see! So, perhaps pre-issue rule number one should be to have at least one other suitable person read through your draft report as a peer review. Preferably use someone who has been involved in the information gathering process for the report. Even better is to use a two-person peer review process. Discuss with the reviewers any changes suggested, and correct any wording or explanation that is not clear to the reviewer, or could be mis-interpreted. Are there some basic document creation techniques or guidelines to assist in this process and ensure it is as least time consuming as possible for the reviewers? Absolutely. Assuming you are using an already developed report template (almost always the best way to go when you are going to be repeating this whole exercise for multiple reports), then just ensure the following suggestions are incorporated as appropriate to your environment and updated prior to the peer review process: * Front cover with clear title, issue date, version number, any
logos required
Deliver the draft report in the format agreed, which could typically be a printed copy, by e-mail in MS Word, or in a read only Adobe Acrobat pdf format. A word of warning, be wary of presenting documents in MS Word format, especially if they are a draft version, meaning the documents are really still in a work in progress state and therefore subject to further change. Particularly for the project sponsor or client review, it is far safer to protect the integrity of the original information in the document by not allowing unauthorised changes. At all times retain a central (such as the document author) change control and version control over the draft report right up to the point where it is finally issued and signed off. When the draft report is issued for project sponsor or client review, schedule a follow-up meeting with the project sponsor or process owner to discuss any changes (these should be agreed by all three parties – the client or project sponsor, the document author, and the relevant department), information additions, or any explanations that might be required. Ideally set this meeting to be not more than one week or thereabouts after delivery of the report. Experience has shown that some project sponsors are not averse to taking the whole arm when offered a hand, so keep control of the timescales. Even at this late stage a certain element of dragging the heels by the project sponsor or document reviewers can drastically delay the final report delivery, and thus hinder closure of this project phase. After the draft report meeting and discussion with the project sponsor, apply the agreed changes, update the document footers and quality control tables, assess whether another internal peer review is required, remove the draft header, give a final spell check, and re-issue as the final document. To confirm that this is a final document issue and the content is complete and as per the pre-agreed scope to the satisfaction of the project sponsor and other relevant parties, get sign off. This can be in a number of formats, but perhaps the easiest is to have a sign off table in the document. This should list the document approval names and company designation as required against the signature and date. Ideally this should have been agreed up front and documented in a project charter or similar document. These suggestions are offered as the minimum requirements for good business continuity management document quality control. Hopefully by implementing all of the above you can improve your document deliverables and in doing so improve the overall standard and value to the client / project sponsor. However, please note, in addition to all the points previously discussed, you also need to assess and possibly add the specific requirements that your own working environment or the company you are consulting for requires. These could involve several related areas, but in a nutshell could also cover document management and classification for information security, use of a document management system application and control, specific font sizes or report style layout, and even specific company logo rules for use on documents. The above is not a complete ‘list of requirements’ for good document management and quality control, but does provide what I consider to be the main basics of the process. If you implement the above, you will be a long way down the road to achieving good document quality control. Happy writing !! Ray Liepa MBCI is a business continuity consultant with ContinuitySA (Pty) Ltd: South Africa. ray.liepa@continuitysa.co.za
•Date:
15th Dec 2004 •Region: S.Africa / World •Type:
Article •Topic: BC
general |
