Effective Policy Management, A 5-Step Checklist
Effective policy management requires both a strategic and a properly equipped program with the right technology to support dynamic processing and metrics. Many organizations get started with building their policy library. This is often accomplished in a document management system involving collecting word documents or pdfs in a file share solution such as SharePoint. This ad hoc approach can be an effective policy management solution for small scale operations or simply making guidance generally available. But businesses also need the ability to measure the scope of policies to ensure that all their external mandates and internal practices are covered.
As a business, your policy goals should be to reduce risk across your business by educating and measuring engagement with individual stakeholders. This starts with the development process. The policy must be inclusive of the obligations and communicate the desired behavior in a way that makes sense for your corporate culture and general business operations. From there, organizations need the ability to utilize the appropriate channels of communications to meet stakeholders in an engaging format. A static document repository works very well as a point of reference but requires individuals to search and find the policies proactively. This does little to engage stakeholders for effective policy management.
Another core requirement for effective policy management is that organizations need the ability to measure policy performance. Having the ability to measure the distribution of the policy is a baseline for this requirement. Has my organization received the policy and acknowledged the guidelines. Beyond that, businesses need to reinforce standards through ongoing metrics or more in-depth knowledge testing beyond a check box. Yes, this policy has been received.
Download our 5 Step Checklist for Effective Policy Management to review what key considerations your organization should evaluate to optimize your policy management program from design and distribution to enforcement.