Keeping track of reviews and changes to draft P&P statem

Jared · Unread post by **Jared** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 5:52 pm

Hi,

I am producing a Policy and Procedure Manual from scratch using H&M. While I have experience editing people’s work, I have never really been able to figure out how to keep track of changes made to electronic files. And I have no experience writing and editing on the level that I am currently. I would appreciate it if anyone could give me some suggestions or guidance with regard to collaborating or distributing draft policy statements for review, correction and authorization by management.

My boss suggested using the routing feature in MS Word to send the draft statements for review, correction, etc. The problem with this is there are many different operating systems versions on the network and a bunch of people can’t use the routing features of MS Word.

A hard copy delivered and then marked up and returned is the way I have always done it but if you are working on 10-100 drafts at a time, I think this would turn into a mess real quickly. Besides I am trying to utilize all this expensive technology not duplicate it in manual (excuse the pun) system.

I could use the document compare feature of MS Word but I am not sure how I would keep track of which version or read I was looking at. And this would require that everyone that was reviewing know how to use this system and this seems unlikely.

I have seen products on the market for creating policy and procedure manuals which very effectively deal with this issue. But the are not as flexible or as good for actually organizing and writing the P&P as H&M is. Also they require everyone who collaborates or edits to buy a license which makes the cost prohibitive.

So how do professional writers who need to have work edited, reviewed and authorized, manage to keep track of lots of ongoing work?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jared

Unread post by **Tim Green** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 8:30 pm

Jared,

So how do professional writers who need to have work edited, reviewed and authorized, manage to keep track of lots of ongoing work?

There are quite a few different methods but what they all have in common is Draconian, uncompromising discipline. The most commonly-used method, and a recipe for disaster, is just sending copies and updates wildly back and forth by e-mail. Not recommended.

Word's Track Changes feature is good, particularly if you combine it with the Lock Document functions to make certain parts of the documents unchangeable. However that isn't an option for you because of the multi-platform situation.

So what you need to do is work out a policy strategy that emulates that approach and depends on everyone sticks to the policies as though they were the Word of God, if you get what I mean. This probably means working out some very compelling "incentives" to encourage your co-workers to comply... those are up to you, of course.

Since most text editors on all systems now support colors, color-coding your texts would probably be a good start. Different colors for different text status, for added text, deleted text and so on. It's also good to agree on identifying marks for each author -- for example like this, in combination with the color. [TG]

The next most important thing is to make sure that it isn't possible for an older version of a text to be worked on while a revised version has already been passed on. This is crucial, and it's more planning than anything else. Some people do it by having the files stored on a central server with access rights, so that only one person can access the files at a time. This is probably the most secure method, but it's not always possible. Otherwise you have to work out a schedule to make sure that everyone knows when they can work on which files, with confirmations to the involved authors when the files get passed on.

It's complex and mistakes always happen, but you get the general idea...

Jared · Unread post by **Jared** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 9:37 pm

Tim,

Thanks once again for a timely and thorough response. I appreciate your effort.

It sounds like there is no ready, program-type fix. Sure seems like a great opportunity for some program designer. Geesh, everyone on the planet has to do this kind of collaboration in one form or another in the workplace.

Oh well. If I come up with anything workable I’ll let you know. But it may be some time

Jared

Unread post by **Tim Green** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 6:33 am

Jared wrote:It sounds like there is no ready, program-type fix. Sure seems like a great opportunity for some program designer.

Oh, I think there's quite a lot of stuff out there, it's just a question of finding something that's suitable for your needs and can be deployed without extreme time, costs and learning-curve overheads. If you Google for "groupware" you'll find more than you ever wanted to know. Here's a couple of interesting-looking links I just came up with:

http://www.usabilityfirst.com/groupware/
http://www.svpal.org/~grantbow/groupware.html
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pracintgr/

Jared · Unread post by **Jared** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 4:17 pm

Tim,

Thanks for the info. Looks like I'm up for some more of that never ending computer related process of learning, learning, learning

Jared