Re: Operations Manual

[John Jones <jijones@usjoneses.com>]

Anner White head sends:

Friends, I want to speak, please, to this matter of the Operations Manual. I consider this issue critically important.
 
I believe I have standing to offer useful comments because I have actually contributed to the AIS Operations Manual. I think I was the first author of the section on the workings and policies of the Membership Office, now much revised, as well it should be. I also speak from experience as a new AIS worker who had urgent and desperate need of such a Manual at a time when one did not exist. 
 
I understand an Operations Manual to be the means by which the Society promotes efficiency, improves communication, and insures against crisis in the event of catastrophe, incompetence, or sudden change.
 
I further understand it to be the means by which each department learns the importance of each other, and comes to understand how all the pieces of the organization are related, and must support each other. Because all will read the record of the practical workings of the Society, so all will better be able to make enlightened decisions impacting their offices, and the organization.
 
Properly, an Operations Manual is a how-to book, not a mission statement, nor a catalog of the romantic desiderata of an ideal society, nor a philosophical treatise on power and responsibility. The Bylaws exist to define legally areas of responsibility and the limits of power. Their purpose is to safeguard the rights of the entire membership, not protect the privileges of the Board. They are not intended to provide specifics on quotidian operational practicalities, and an Operations Manual is not supposed to have the same legal force or purpose as they. Such a Manual will necessarily involve reference to policy, but it cannot also serve as a manual of all policy.
 
Obviously you need such a Manual so that if someone drops dead in their tracks or looses their mind another can step into their shoes without undue stress and confusion and carry on, but there is another reason other than harkening to the call of duty--- who so often, as Ogden Nash correctly lamented, "hath not the visage of a sweetie or a cutie"--- to embrace this chore.
 
Writing your part of the Manual can be a very positive experience. I was cutting back the liriope in the front yard the other day when it was sunny, and a passerby said something simpleminded to me about how yardwork is a such a total drag. I responded that it needed to be done, and if you did not enjoy it, the process was yardwork, but if you did, it was gardening. I invite you to consider doing your bit for the Manual not only a privilege, but also a pleasure.
 
You will find documenting your office and its contribution to be a valuable exercise. In writing up your job, you will think hard about it, and will come to understand it better, and have insights which will enable you to do it more efficiently. You will understand more clearly how it relates to all the other AIS jobs, and you will appreciate exactly why what you do is important. You will find you are very proud to do your best. This I promise you, and I know first hand exactly what I am talking about. 
 
I suggest that compiling and maintaining a viable Operations Manual is best understood as an ongoing process, not a goal. AIS cannot make an Operations Manual for the ages. It must evolve and change with the AIS. At any given time it must be clear, precise, complete, and authoritative, and the content unambiguous and oriented toward practicalities and efficiency. Every job description in it should contain the requirement to keep that office's portion of the Manual current and correct. The established process by which departments can independently revise or update their contribution should be deliberately kept simple and transparent. 
 
You will need an appointee to manage the Manual, now and forever, to receive updates, keep the lines of communication open when change occurs, initiate discussion when that seems to be called for, bring problems to the attention of the Board, and keep all the little bits and pieces in good order and the whole presentable. No, I am not volunteering. I have other work to do for AIS which is also important.  
 
I expect that you will find that when everyone knows what everyone else is supposed to be doing, energies will be appropriately directed and more of the right sorts of things will be accomplished in a timely manner, leaving more time for fun and promoting the AIS mission. 
 
I have no idea what condition the extant Operations Manual is in now, but from what I am hearing, and have been hearing for years, it sounds like you should archive the current fragmentary document, and simply start over. You appear to be fatally bogged down.
 
I encourage you to establish realistic and concrete new guidelines, inform all parties that timely cooperation is mandatory, that their job depends on their understanding that fact, and set a firm new deadline. Declare an amnesty for past non-cooperation, announce the golden opportunity to do the right thing for AIS, and move cheerfully forward. 
 
You need to set up a private dedicated email group like this one, make it so it accepts attachments and simply have folks publish their Manual contributions to the whole for comment, or direct their questions to other departments about matters of mutual interest or responsibility. If anyone now serving deems the material in the files for their department to be current and beyond improvement, they can resubmit it.
 
When you get everything sorted out, then you can tart the document up for pretty, and put the Manual on the AIS webpage, if you wish.
 
I encourage you to promise yourselves that the AIS Operations Manual is going to be finished by the 2013 Fall Board Meeting, and to keep your promise to yourself, and to AIS.
 
I have every faith you can do this, and do it well.  
 
Cordially,
 
Anner M. Whitehead 
"When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself." Karen Blixen, (1885-1962), coffee farmer and author.   

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