I am the document control coordinator for my company and I've had a lot of issues with documents being held up in pending status for too long. I've got one document that has been in pending status since October! When a document is rejected by any one approver the rejection response and document goes back to the originator, but we have nothing written about non-response. Of course, I email multiple reminders that documents are awaiting their approval, but that does nothing if the approver is unwilling to take decisive action.
I am considering a revision to our document control procedure that approvals or rejections shall be received within two weeks (or possibly longer if circumstances warrant). Documents that are not approved by all required approvers after that period shall be returned to the originator.
Then it will be the responsibility of the originator to meet with the other approvers to see what the hold-up was about, rather than me holding an archive of orphaned revisions.
Does anyone here have a process for handling non-responses or other recommendations?
I am considering a revision to our document control procedure that approvals or rejections shall be received within two weeks (or possibly longer if circumstances warrant). Documents that are not approved by all required approvers after that period shall be returned to the originator.
Then it will be the responsibility of the originator to meet with the other approvers to see what the hold-up was about, rather than me holding an archive of orphaned revisions.
Does anyone here have a process for handling non-responses or other recommendations?
You have knowledgeable folks editing the documents, right? They take the time to research an issue, talk to the parties affected by a change, and then edit a document, right? Chances are overwhelmingly high that the change is an improvement, right? If so, you could simply deem a change approved unless there is a specific reply from the designated reviewer within a short time period. Whoosh. Your documents will start to improve quickly.
To take it even further, you may want to empower, say, any of a process's participants to approve edits to that process's documents. Or, if you really want to get bold, empower everyone to edit anything in your system. With good version control (such as what you get with any wiki), this is not only practical, but desirable. Process owners should be charged with monitoring their documents, and, for the rare occasions when a change does prove misguided, reverse.
With empowerment comes ownership, responsibility, employee satisfaction and a rapidly improving system.
Good luck!
Pancho
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