How many steps does a procedure have?

B

biboy2012

#1
It obviously depends upon the process and even ISO 9001 certainly did not prescribe any magic number. Nevertheless, I would like to ask your opinion and suggestions about our 55 steps/tasks procedure.
 
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Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
Admin
#2
What is the procedure about? The length of a procedure depends upon the complexity of the process it describes. A procedure can be one page or it could be 100 pages.

Your best bet would be to attach your procedure for folks here to comment on.
 
B

biboy2012

#3
What is the procedure about? The length of a procedure depends upon the complexity of the process it describes. A procedure can be one page or it could be 100 pages.

Your best bet would be to attach your procedure for folks here to comment on.
The procedure is about accepting new sales, reservation, payments and submission of documentary requirements, credit review, payment scheme, booking of account into the system, processing of Tittle etc etc

By Title, I mean a specific document which serves as proof of ownership.

I hesitate a bit to post the attached procedure (created by Operations team) in my OP because it is somewhat messy and still in draft.
 

Attachments

A

ankey

#4
The procedure can be more simple but the instruction can be more detail. So the steps for a procedure can be less in your attachment. My thought
 

sagai

Quite Involved in Discussions
#5
hmmm ...

it recalls me Wikipedia reference-linkTaylorism actually.

One of the question came into my mind reading this procedure is ... Really? Really this procedure serves any purpose?

Actually what is the purpose of these type of procedures?

I understand, it more or less describes sales operation, but I think you do it anyway with new employee training, update training or mentoring. I also assume you do not hire someone without having a competence required to fulfill the job, but may be I am mistaken.
Moreover do we really believe that anybody would read these type of documents other than the one wrote it?
Do we really believe that the target audience reading it rather than asking someone in case in a situation she/he not familiar with?

The benefit I see in these documents when you are planning to automate the corresponding procedure with computerized system and you set requirements and exact definitions to complete.

Cheers!
 
S

ssz102

#6
take in my vriew, develop a procedure need to some step as following:
firstly, listing the purpose for parepare this procedure;
second, writting apply scope for this procedure ;
third, define the responsibility for every personal or per dept
fouth, describle the details process for per operation step
finally, showing the support documentation or form and so on
 

Jim Wynne

Staff member
Admin
#7
It obviously depends upon the process and even ISO 9001 certainly did not prescribe any magic number. Nevertheless, I would like to ask your opinion and suggestions about our 55 steps/tasks procedure.
Think of the number of steps in the process. A "step" or operation is something (generally) that happens in sequence, with the combined effect of the steps being the output of the process. A written procedure should have as many steps as necessary to describe the sequence of operations in the process.
 

sagai

Quite Involved in Discussions
#8
Two principles I would caveat, well represented in these notes.
1., Extent advisable to be determined based on Note1,
2., it is not necessary to be a document, it can basically be anything retrievable.
Cheers!
ISO9001:2008
4.2.1.
...
NOTE 1 The extent of the quality management system documentation can differ from one organization to another
due to
a) the size of the organization and type of activities,
b) the complexity of processes and their interactions, and
c) the competence of personnel.
NOTE 2 The documentation can be in any form or type of medium.
 
B

biboy2012

#9
hmmm ...

it recalls me Wikipedia reference-linkTaylorism actually.

One of the question came into my mind reading this procedure is ... Really? Really this procedure serves any purpose?

Actually what is the purpose of these type of procedures?
The purpose is for trading projects. The activities are critical to both our customers and business.

I understand, it more or less describes sales operation, but I think you do it anyway with new employee training, update training or mentoring. I also assume you do not hire someone without having a competence required to fulfill the job, but may be I am mistaken.
Sure, I understand the competency side.
Moreover do we really believe that anybody would read these type of documents other than the one wrote it?
Do we really believe that the target audience reading it rather than asking someone in case in a situation she/he not familiar with?
I am planning to break said procedure into several procedures. Maybe it will fall out along the following lines:

New sales acceptance
Reservation
Preparing (notarizing etc) of Contract to Sell
Preparing of Deed of Absolute Sale
Payment schedules and computation
Transfer of Title

The benefit I see in these documents when you are planning to automate the corresponding procedure with computerized system and you set requirements and exact definitions to complete.

Cheers!
There are activities done manually and some done automatically. Forexample,
Manual - physical v
alidation of the availability of the unit being reserved, credit review/background investigation, manual computation of payments for customers asking for special payment terms, etc
Automated - booking of account (Registration of customer info in the system at the point of reservation) etc etc
 
C

Chris_Anderson

#10
Your procedure has a lot of information that could be streamlined and some of the steps removed or merged. Each blue section is not really about a job it is about a function. You can use each blue section to answer a question. The question isn't sales admin. The first section is about handling sales inquires. You don't need to repeat the process map branch questions. I think this is confusing and hard to read. I would eliminate all If... Otherwise... statements. Do you need to say "forward" or "inform"? What does that mean? Email, phone call, walk it over to their desk... If that is what you mean then say it.

For example:

1. Sales Admin receives inquiries from buyers, checks for available units, and informs buyer of prices.
2. Sales Admin must confirm special payment terms (is special defined as an NPVO?) with Business Development Officer.
3. Business Development Officer computes new NPVO (is NPVO defined?) and obtains approval (are approval criteria defined?) from the CFO.

Your first 12 steps have been reduced to three... perhaps you could reduce your whole procedure to 12 steps. Add some definitions and expand on responsibilities and you are done. If you want to make it a real process definition then I would add effectiveness criteria like inquiries/day, approvals/day, risk per order, etc. and how those are recorded and used.

I would add more detail to things like "check for completeness" what does complete mean? What is a standard payment term? Do you have "documentary requirements"? is this a form or document? Overall it's a good start. I would focus on readability and flow and not worry about the number of steps, although the number of steps could be an indication of poor readability.
 
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