A QM handbook that stays current
Why handbooks go stale in a business and what to do about it: one place for all versions, one person in charge per page, every change with a short note.
You wrote the handbook, and it was good. Half a year later the old version still hangs on the notice board, a second one sits in the binder, and the shared drive holds “work_instruction_new_final”. The handbook rarely lacks content. Usually nobody knows which version applies anymore.
That is easy to change, even if you look after the handbook on the side and have no team for it.
Old versions stay in circulation
A printout is out of date the day the change is made. Whoever pinned it up in the workshop may never hear about the new version. The same goes for copies on the shared drive and attachments in old emails.
A fixed rule helps: for every instruction there is exactly one place where the current version lives. Everything else is a copy and only counts if someone checked it against that place. Printouts therefore carry a note such as “Valid today only, check the handbook for the current version”.
Nobody knows what changed
When a page changes, the team rarely notices. And when someone asks since when a rule has been the way it is, there is no answer.
Write one sentence for every new version: what changed and why. Add the date and the name of the person who approved the change.
The sentence takes half a minute and saves guessing later.
Nobody finds what is in it
A handbook you have to leaf through first does not get used. Then the team asks a colleague instead, and the colleague answers from memory.
Write short pages with one topic each. Give them titles in the words the business actually uses: “Setting up scaffolding” rather than “Procedure work equipment”. Whoever finds an answer in a minute looks again next time.
A routine for small businesses
- Name one person in charge of each page. In a small company that is often just two or three names, yours included.
- Write changes as a draft first and have someone read them before your team sees them.
- Publish the new version with one sentence on what changed.
- Keep the old version, but stop handing it out.
- Once a year, go through every page and ask: is this still right?
A starting outline
If you are starting from zero, a few chapters are enough. Adapt them to your business:
- About the business What you do, for whom, and what matters to you at work.
- Responsibilities Who decides what and who to ask.
- Procedures The jobs that should always run the same way, one page each.
- Checks What you check, when, and who records it.
- When something goes wrong What happens with a complaint or a mistake.
What goes into each of these chapters in detail is in the guide What goes into a QM handbook?.
How Regelwerk supports this routine
Regelwerk is a digital handbook built around exactly this routine. Every page exists once, in its approved version. Changes start as a draft, and only someone with the publish permission releases them (drafts and approval). For every page, the version history shows the current version and the ten before it, with name and date (version history). Search finds words in titles and text (search).
If you want to try Regelwerk, join the waitlist. We answer questions through the contact page.
End the documentation nobody reads.
Join the waitlist and be the first to know when Regelwerk launches.