Writing procedures and policies

Madrigal writes and edits procedures and policies for all types of businesses and for government. Our senior technical writers have strong government and corporate experience and provide significant value-adding to the formation of procedures and policies.

The Madrigal approach to policies and procedures

Policies and procedures should be written in plain English to provide accessible and easy-to-read information and guidance for your staff or customers. They need to be accessible to both beginners and the expert so jargon must be avoided because it is not always understood. Handbooks and manuals need to be structured and well written as they function as step-by-step guides for first timers as well as references for the experienced.

Developing organisational policies

Internal policies (sometimes standards) range from internal polices concerned with governance, management to the correct behaviours within your organisation. Most organisations have policies in place to ensure that their employees, management and their customers are treated properly, are safe and behave correctly in the workplace.

Developing organisational procedures

Procedures within an organisation represent how policies are implemented. They need to be updated as new tools emerge, new processes are designed, and the risks associated with an area changes in response to internal or external environmental changes. Our technical writers have experience in quality management systems and the requirements for procedures as part of the QMS.

Drafting Government policy

Government policies are a way of expressing how legislation should be interpreted or developed. Government policy documents are often published as part of a green paper and white paper process as government policy is communicated to the community and stakeholders for discussion and community consultation. Madrigal Director, Tim Entwisle, has significant experience in policy formulation and documentation particularly in water resource management and natural resource management.

The importance of diagrams and infographics

We very much believe that a picture tells a thousand words. So when our technical writers procedures (where there are a lot of complex and often repetitious ideas to be explained) we include diagrams, illustrations and infographics to help make them easier to understand. Diagrams may include workflow diagrams (or flowcharts) that follow established formats to explain procedures; or graphs that show how numerical relationships work. Infographics are a modern take on combining illustrations with data to make information easier to understand.

Using workflow diagrams

The Business Dictionary defines a workflow diagram (wfd) as the graphical depiction of steps taken, time spent, distance travelled and other parts of the way a particular piece of work is done. They are very easy way to show how business tasks should be done. The following workflow is an example of a procedure for the tendering process.