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Rating: 
Summary: Good grasp of strategic planning
Review: I really enjoyed the first half of this book. Steve gives URL's to on-line procedures that are professionally written. He also describes strategic planning and vision statements, and how having well documented procedures can be an asset for a company.I was a little disappointed with the second half of the book. It is nicely done - concerning using teams to flowchart how a process is performed, which becomes the basis for a written procedure. Steve covered this subject adequately in his other books already. But if team-building skills is of interest to you, this book offers many helpful suggestions.
Rating:
Summary: Good grasp of strategic planning
Review: I really enjoyed the first half of this book. Steve gives URL's to on-line procedures that are professionally written. He also describes strategic planning and vision statements, and how having well documented procedures can be an asset for a company. I was a little disappointed with the second half of the book. It is nicely done - concerning using teams to flowchart how a process is performed, which becomes the basis for a written procedure. Steve covered this subject adequately in his other books already. But if team-building skills is of interest to you, this book offers many helpful suggestions.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Sequel
Review: Steve's new book is a good addition to his series on developing policies and procedures: Establishing a System of Policies and Procedures, Achieving 100% Compliance of Policies and Procedures, and 7 Steps to Better Written Policies and Procedures. (In particular, Steve's new book focuses on strategic planning, architecture, and coordination for the design and development of policies and procedures. In addition, Steve's new book now recognizes the importance of studying existing examples of policies and procedures, and their role in successfully designing new ones.) Steve's books are a unique blend of strategic, tactical, and operational methods for planning and implementing the design and development of policies and procedures for any purpose. Steve's books are particularly useful to the application of Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), Software Capability Maturity Model (SW-CMM), ISO 9000, and IEEE 12207. Steve, an outsider to the field of software process improvement (SPI), unlocks the secrets of implementing successful software process architectures (which is a previously uncrossable chasm created by SPI researchers who have not had much success in mastering Steve's discipline). The fields of business process reengineering (BPR), software process improvement (SPI), and process mapping need more unselfish pioneers like Stephen B. Page to bring practical advice to the technically-starved analysts created in the wake of blockbuster standards such as CMMI, SW-CMM, ISO 9000, and IEEE 12207.
Rating:
Summary: Unique - raises the bar for policies and procedures writers
Review: This book is best read after reading the author's previous three books because this one ties together the techniques and processes for developing policies and procedures by linking them to corporate strategy. As in his previous books the sequence of steps is clearly laid out, leading you from vision to strategy to process development. These are the basis for policies and procedures, and if done as described in this book your policies and procedures will trace back to processes, which will trace back to strategy, and the strategy will be consistent with the vision statement. It's this chain of traceability that separates best practices from ad hoc policies that may or may not be aligned to company business imperatives. The real value that you'll get from this book comes from the example policies and procedures that are included in the last part of the book. There aren't reprinted. Instead you're given the URLs that point to these documents on the web. The ones that are included truly represent best practices, and there is an example from most of the major industries, including non-profit organizations and government agencies. In addition to the example documents, there are also URLs for standards bodies and repositories of specific information (auditing, software process improvement, project management, etc.). Because URLs do frequently change the book's associated web page has the same listing that is updated when links are reported to be broken or new resources are added. In addition, each chapter ends with a bibliography of recommended books, which will significantly shorten your research as you develop a comprehensive and encompassing set of policies and procedures that are traceable. Another nice feature is the fact that the author gives his personal e-mail address in the book and will respond to questions. I know from personal experience that he listens to his readers and dispenses excellent advice when a rare question not covered in one of his books arises. My recommendation is to get the entire set of books ("Establishing a System of Policies and Procedures", "Achieving 100% Compliance of Policies and Procedures" and "7 Steps to Better Written Policies and Procedures"), work through them in that order, then apply the approach in this book to develop and implement policies and procedures that are traceable and reflect true best practices.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book for Policy and Procedure Strategy
Review: This book is the first of its kind and has aid my team greatly as it shows how to align policies and procedures directly to the company's vision, strategic direction, and core processes. It also shows how to identify and select core processes, another real plus. The author does an excellent job of showing you how to develop a team to study and implement policies and procedures. He shows you a path from identify an idea to identify best solution to document solution to writing the solution. This is a great chapter. He also integrates his other three books into this book. In the last half of the book he does a great service to people looking to develop new policies and procedures for those who wish to improve their current ones. He gives great, really great examples on actual policies and procedures in 60 industries. Great Book!
Rating:
Summary: Links strategy to policies & procedures + best practices
Review: This book is the latest in Mr. Page's series of books on writing policies and procedures, and it the one that ties together his previous work. In particular this book extends his comprehensive "Achieving 100% Compliance of Policies and Procedures" book by adding both a process and an array of examples that policies and procedures writers will find invaluable. Where his previous books focused on the process of developing and implementing policies and procedures, this one links corporate vision and strategy to policies and procedures. The process to accomplish this is given in four steps (1) define the vision, (2) define the strategy, (3) define core processes that support the strategy and vision, and (4) align the policies and procedures to the core processes. As someone with extensive experience in developing and implementing policies and procedures I can attest that this method is critical to success. Approximately the first two thirds of the book is devoted to stepping you through the process and does so clearly. I like the way a graphical depiction of the process starts each chapter in the first half of the book to give you a point of reference and to also indicate what remains to be done. The chapter sequence is (1) Vision and Strategic Directions, (2) Building the TOC, (3) Developing Policies and Procedures, (4) Writing Policies and Procedures, (5)Table of Contents Examples and Policy and Procedure URLs, and (6) Epilogue. A great deal of emphasis is given to critical success factors, such as roles and responsibilities and cross-functional team management. I also like the way each chapter ends with a checklist for understanding and references. What makes this book unique, however, is the last third of the book (Chapter 5), which is a listing of URLs and descriptive information that point to 56 policies and procedures manuals accessible over the web that reflect best practices. Since URLs frequently change, the book has an associated web site that keeps these up-to-date. The descriptive information for each URL includes topic (type of manual), functional area (industry segment), subject area category (what it covers) and detailed subject areas (a summary of the TOC). The best practices reflect most major functional areas, including accounting, child care, church, e-mail, information technology and software engineering, project management, risk management, purchasing, personnel, and more. The research and effort that went into this book is both exhaustive and impressive. This book is an ideal companion to any of the author's other books, especially if you choose "Achieving 100% Compliance of Policies and Procedures" book. Combined, his set of four books is powerful set of tools for developing best-in-class policies and procedures.
Rating:
Summary: Links strategy to policies & procedures + best practices
Review: This book is the latest in Mr. Page's series of books on writing policies and procedures, and it the one that ties together his previous work. In particular this book extends his comprehensive "Achieving 100% Compliance of Policies and Procedures" book by adding both a process and an array of examples that policies and procedures writers will find invaluable. Where his previous books focused on the process of developing and implementing policies and procedures, this one links corporate vision and strategy to policies and procedures. The process to accomplish this is given in four steps (1) define the vision, (2) define the strategy, (3) define core processes that support the strategy and vision, and (4) align the policies and procedures to the core processes. As someone with extensive experience in developing and implementing policies and procedures I can attest that this method is critical to success. Approximately the first two thirds of the book is devoted to stepping you through the process and does so clearly. I like the way a graphical depiction of the process starts each chapter in the first half of the book to give you a point of reference and to also indicate what remains to be done. The chapter sequence is (1) Vision and Strategic Directions, (2) Building the TOC, (3) Developing Policies and Procedures, (4) Writing Policies and Procedures, (5)Table of Contents Examples and Policy and Procedure URLs, and (6) Epilogue. A great deal of emphasis is given to critical success factors, such as roles and responsibilities and cross-functional team management. I also like the way each chapter ends with a checklist for understanding and references. What makes this book unique, however, is the last third of the book (Chapter 5), which is a listing of URLs and descriptive information that point to 56 policies and procedures manuals accessible over the web that reflect best practices. Since URLs frequently change, the book has an associated web site that keeps these up-to-date. The descriptive information for each URL includes topic (type of manual), functional area (industry segment), subject area category (what it covers) and detailed subject areas (a summary of the TOC). The best practices reflect most major functional areas, including accounting, child care, church, e-mail, information technology and software engineering, project management, risk management, purchasing, personnel, and more. The research and effort that went into this book is both exhaustive and impressive. This book is an ideal companion to any of the author's other books, especially if you choose "Achieving 100% Compliance of Policies and Procedures" book. Combined, his set of four books is powerful set of tools for developing best-in-class policies and procedures.
Rating:
Summary: Great book with a new shift
Review: This fourth book of the author's clearly takes a new direction. His first three books covered the framework for setting up a system of policies and procedures as well as how to write each policy or procedure. This kind of detail does not exist in any of his competitors' books. In this book, the author concentrates on the importance of aligning policies and procedures at any level to the corporate vision and strategy. He goes so far as to show the reader how to become involved in setting corporate strategy to ensure that there is clear alignment between the strategy and procedure. Without this direct tie to management support, the policies and procedures department is typically considered overhead and is the first department to be eliminated in reorganizations or mergers. I particularly appreciated the second half of this book as I have been looking for an author to write information about what really goes into a policy or procedure for many years. Finding this content has been most difficult. While I am a fairly experienced procedures writer, I couldn't help but feel I was reinventing the wheel since someone, somewhere had to have written similar policies and procedures I could reference. The author provides many ways to find actual policies and procedure content on the Internet, and has referenced more than 150 websites which appear to contain thousands of links to real policies and procedures. I am especially excited about this because as a consultant my jobs change frequently and being able to find sample procedures in various industries will help me out a lot. This book is an impressive effort.
Rating:
Summary: Great book with a new shift
Review: This fourth book of the author's clearly takes a new direction. His first three books covered the framework for setting up a system of policies and procedures as well as how to write each policy or procedure. This kind of detail does not exist in any of his competitors' books. In this book, the author concentrates on the importance of aligning policies and procedures at any level to the corporate vision and strategy. He goes so far as to show the reader how to become involved in setting corporate strategy to ensure that there is clear alignment between the strategy and procedure. Without this direct tie to management support, the policies and procedures department is typically considered overhead and is the first department to be eliminated in reorganizations or mergers. I particularly appreciated the second half of this book as I have been looking for an author to write information about what really goes into a policy or procedure for many years. Finding this content has been most difficult. While I am a fairly experienced procedures writer, I couldn't help but feel I was reinventing the wheel since someone, somewhere had to have written similar policies and procedures I could reference. The author provides many ways to find actual policies and procedure content on the Internet, and has referenced more than 150 websites which appear to contain thousands of links to real policies and procedures. I am especially excited about this because as a consultant my jobs change frequently and being able to find sample procedures in various industries will help me out a lot. This book is an impressive effort.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Source of Policy and Procedure Examples
Review: This is an excellent book. The author gives a very clear explanation of how policies and procedures are linked to vision, strategic plan, and core processes. And like the previous reviewer said, he does an excellent job of describing how a team works in conjunction with writing processes and procedures. The author gives URLs that point to thousands of policy and procedure examples. I am so pleased to have found this book.
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