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Procedure Best Practices

Best content practices for building an Interactive Procedure.

Writing an effective Interactive Procedure takes more than listing steps — it requires a deliberate process for drafting, validating, and rolling out content your team can trust. Here's a practical approach.

Plan the Procedure

Develop a process flow block diagram sequentially from beginning to end, based on the policy or existing procedure outline.

Develop action steps using the block diagram to drive procedure step content.

Action steps begin with an action verb.

One step, one action — this is the mantra for basic human-performance-driven procedures. Do not write steps with multiple actions in one procedure step. The block flow diagram helps drive this point into action.

Develop conditional steps based on questions, conditions, or decisions (a diamond on the flow diagram), using words like IF, WHEN, THEN, AND, OR, BEFORE, AFTER. The condition is always stated before the action taken.

Develop sections and attachments. Whenever the process branches off from the main process to start a new process (e.g., a simple lockout/tagout), determine whether these should be separate procedure sections, attachments, or entirely separate procedures.

Validate the Draft

Validate draft procedure step content. Observe personnel performing tasks during a pilot activity, documenting in detail how each step is performed. Look for gaps, hazards, or shortcomings where personnel are making in-field decisions, asking questions about how or what to do, or where outcomes deviate from intended actions.

Edit and update the procedure content to reflect actual performance requirements.

An effective procedure must be able to be completed successfully without error by minimally qualified personnel, under limited supervision.

Conduct independent validations. Enlist several people to independently validate and mark up the updated draft procedure. Ensure minimally experienced, qualified, and knowledgeable personnel are included in the validation process.

The independent validation process is critical to minimize the introduction of latent organizational weaknesses into the procedure.

Finalize the procedure. Once independently validated, use human-performance procedure-writing best practices to produce the final draft.

Plan the Rollout

Develop a communications and rollout plan for the policy and procedure that includes:

  • Notification and rollout
  • Initial training and testing
  • Ongoing and continuous training and testing
  • A defined process for submitting procedure change requests

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