Your business cannot succeed without proper documentation and a business playbook plan outlining its objectives and the steps necessary to achieve them. If there’s no consistency in the way your company does business, you’ll find it difficult to provide a high-quality product or service. As senior managers and employees are not clear on the correct processes, new employees may feel as if they are being led into chaos. This is where a corporate playbook comes into play.
Having consolidated and accessible information can help your company save time by eliminating the need to repeat tasks. According to research, nearly half of U.S. workers are unsure of what’s expected of them when performing their jobs. With a business playbook, everyone will have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities and make the most of their time.
This practical mini-guide below will break down everything you need to know about creating a corporate playbook to produce top-notch work and scale your business.
Create a Structure
It can be a daunting task to create a business playbook, especially for newly established businesses. A quick internet search can help you find useful templates that you can modify or use as inspiration to build your business playbook.
Keep in mind that your goal is to create a well-structured business playbook that allows employees to focus on the writing, development, and updating of the playbook's content.
Identify Your Target Audience and Your Objectives
When creating your business playbook, the first thing you need to do is determine your target audience. Are you targeting specific individuals or groups within your company? If your company has global employees, consider whether English is the best language to communicate with them or if translations are required.
Consider the overall purpose of your business playbook and start from there. Do you want to improve the productivity of your employees, or do you want to teach them more about your company's mission? You'll be better able to begin gathering content for your playbook once you have defined your goals.
Organize Your Content
Your company's goals and sole purpose in creating your business playbook will determine the elements you should include in your playbook. You might want to add the following sections:
- Company vision and mission
- Workplace values and culture
- Workflows and processes
- Job roles and responsibilities
- Organizational/leadership structure
- Company costs
- HR policies
- Performance indicators
- Standard operating procedure guidelines
- Company goals
- Systems, tools, and techniques
You can go a step further and describe what success looks like for each section or element and how the company measures it.
Check Your Information
You should gather the information that you need to make your business playbook more effective and organize it in one place. It makes it simple to find any missing, outdated, or incorrect information.
A manager can list their job responsibilities and include steps for completing tasks, and then encourage everyone in their team to do the same.
Fill in all spaces in a distinct, simple conversational language. However, don't forget to delete repetitive words and duplicate steps. It is important to be clear and concise.
Use The Correct Tone
A business playbook that’s well-written should demand respect without having to sound authoritative or bossy. You can achieve a balanced tone by clearly stating your expectations and allowing your managers and employees to be flexible in interpreting the situation.
A business playbook is a guide that should be written in a company’s unique voice and highlight the best practices for running a successful business. These are not laws and should not be viewed or treated as such.
Gather Feedback
Once you’ve written the business playbook, make sure to gather feedback so that you can update it to perfection. First, try sharing with someone who is not familiar with your business processes. Let them read the playbook and ask them what seemed unclear.
They're likely to have questions the first time they go through it. Make sure to pay close attention to what they ask, as this will help you understand where you have gaps in your documentation.
The last step is to make your business playbook available to your employees. It should be published in a place that they can easily access. If employees don't know how to find it or where it is, the playbook won't be of any use. Don’t forget to ask your employees as well about any suggestions they think you should include in your corporate playbook.
Final Thoughts
Every business must plan and document its policies, rules, practices, and procedures so they can be easily absorbed and replicated throughout the organization. Creating a business playbook will help everyone understand what they’re doing and how to do it efficiently. By following this practical guide, you’ll ensure that everyone is on the same page from day one.
