Writing the Unwritten Rules

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Dec 15, 2000 by Miles Maguire

A procedures manual quantifying the various editorial tasks involved in producing a magazine can eliminate confusion, inconsistencies and inefficiencies, and make it easier to train new personnel.

As anyone who has moved from one publishing operation to another knows only too well, all magazines and their editors do the same things--only differently.

Over time, a given publication will develop its own idiosyncratic ways of accomplishing generic tasks. These rules of operation--almost invariably unwritten--are expected to be learned by new hires through a process of osmosis.

Once they learn the system, many employees go through the same motions in repeated production cycles without giving much thought to whether there's a better way. The staffer who comes across a shortcut method for handling a routine task may be so consumed by the need to meet deadlines that he or she never gets around to sharing the discovery.

One way to ensure that a magazine does not get trapped in its traditions is to undertake a systematic review of editorial operations, a process that can eliminate the inefficiencies, inconsistencies and confusion that accumulate over time. The staff of Quality Progress, the monthly membership magazine of the American Society for Quality, recently undertook such an effort. The result was a procedures manual, the kind of document that has long been common in all manner of manufacturing and service operations, but is still relatively rare in editorial environments.

At the outset, creating the manual appeared to be an overwhelming task--and one that some on the staff viewed as hopelessly bureaucratic and dispiriting. But writing the manual proved to be a valuable team-building exercise that led to the uniform adoption of best practices. It also resulted in the restructuring or elimination of outdated job duties and the reassignment of responsibilities.

For editorial management, a procedures manual greatly simplifies the training process for new employees. It also brings a measure of confidence that all staffers know precisely what is expected. Finally, if properly structured, the manual creates a mechanism for ongoing examination of the editorial function and institutionalizes a method for making process improvements.

Get everyone on board: As with any improvement initiative, the first step--convincing others that the project will be worth the effort--is often the hardest. One of the outcomes should be greater efficiency and reduced workloads for individual staffers, but convincing them that an additional task in the near term will benefit them in the long run can be a tough sell.

At Quality Progress, the staff warmed to the idea of writing a procedures manual because there had been significant turnover, and many of us were new to our jobs. But an editor who needs to build support for developing a procedures manual may have to be opportunistic.

Repeated deadline or quality lapses can prove the point that a process review is needed. Similarly, staff dissatisfaction with job duties or relative workloads might be the starting place for conducting this analysis. The growing demands of electronic publishing on a staff that is not growing can also be a good reason to initiate a procedures-review and manual-writing process. (See sidebar, next page.)

Find a facilitator: After the green light has been given, the next step is to appoint a facilitator. The facilitator's main role is to develop a game plan and keep the project on schedule.

There are few specific requirements for the job of facilitator, but some attributes that would come in handy are a knack for organization, the respect of peers and a sense of humor. And it's probably better if the person is not management-level.

Build a framework: Start by having magazine staffers update their written job descriptions. They should then create a list of the specific tasks that they have been assigned.

Those tasks are then grouped into categories, such as administration, production editing and manuscript coordination. Another category can also be created for tasks, such as editing an article, that several different staffers may perform. This list of tasks grouped by category forms the table of contents for the finished manual.

The next step is for individual staffers to start writing the procedures for each of their assigned tasks. Quality Progress used a standard format that included a statement explaining the purpose of the task, a list of actions required to accomplish the task, and how often the task must be undertaken.

Maintain momentum: Even if the project is begun with enthusiasm, there's always the danger it will bog down. The remedy is to set modest interim goals with reasonable deadlines. After Quality Progress had developed its list of procedures, we decided that each of us would take approximately a month to write up five. We then met to review what we had written. We also used this meeting to allow staffers to vent any frustration, and as an occasion to celebrate our progress--including baked goods as a reward for reaching this milestone.