Do you Own a Business? How to Determine if Your Policies and Procedures Too Long
by Aditi Bansal
Updated on Thursday, August 10, 2017
Have you ever wondered what the right length for all your policy and procedures manual is? Very few authors draft short SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures). Creating long SOPs ranging between 50 and 70 pages long is more common. So, do you know how long your policy and procedures manual should be?

tags #Policies and Procedures #Long Procedures #
Long Procedures are wrong
The longer your procedure, the harder it is to understand or use. When you create a long SOP, it will confuse your employees. Other than being hard to organize all information, it becomes harder to update all the content which makes navigation more complex.
Length of your Business Policy
Begin by assessing your business policies. Business policies are guides that help organizations to set their direction. Examples of Business Policies:
- Sexual harassment policies
- Accounts receivable policies
- Warehouse policies
Business Policies Meta Data
This is all the information about your content. It should include:
- Title
- Policy
- Definitions
- Purpose
- Responsibilities
- Scope
- References
Procedures aren’t written in a Vacuum
In case your business policy and procedures manual go beyond a few pages, this can be a scope problem. This is because you will add more information that may belong in a work instruction or procedure. Therefore, business policies aren’t written in a vacuum; they will stem from your business strategy.
Process Procedures
The business procedures you have created should describe processes that your employees should follow to achieve something repeatedly. Process procedures are as simple as writing high-level process flow maps. If you use process maps as your procedure, ensure that they aren’t long. Ideally, they should be only one page.
Length of your Process Procedure
A firmly focused business policy and procedures manual help to develop a firmly focused business procedure. The long SOPs are the most common. Although it may seem easier to concentrate your policy in one sentence, concentrating your procedure in one sentence can be more difficult. This is because procedures often describe repeatable steps that can accomplish a result.
Adopt the Rule of Seven
The rule of seven is used to remind business owners to keep procedures short
- Less than seven procedures per process
- Less than 7 activities per procedure
- Less than seven lines per paragraph
- Less than seven tasks for any activity
SOP Length
Keep your procedure short by using the work instructions to shorten your procedures. The longer your policies and procedures, the harder they are to understand.
This page has a focus on Policies and Procedures, Long Procedures was shared by Aditi Bansal.