An update many be considered a nonsubstantive edit. Examples include updating a position title or a department name, correcting a typo, and repairing broken website links.

Revisions may be of minor or major significance:

• A minor revision usually has low significance. An example is clarifying the wording within a sentence or paragraph.
• A major revision significantly changes the policy. Examples include new requirements, new limitations, or expanded responsibilities. These types of changes should be sent to the policy change control board for consideration.

Throughout the chapter, you were provided with some best practices for developing your documents, numbering them appropriately, publishing your documents, and spreading the word about them. If you follow this guidance, the change process should take minimal effort. If every change requires a complete revisiting of the library, you have a much bigger problem on your hands.

Assuming that you follow the same development and review cycles for your updates and gain the necessary buy-in from those who are affected by changes, the most time-consuming activity will be communicating your changes to the organization. Using the techniques and tools for communication and media, you should be able to rely on the same processes you developed for ongoing awareness and training.

To help you determine what changes or maintenance you’ll need to perform, use the information provided by:

• Exceptions and waivers—Look for common problems related to compliance. If the standard cannot be met very often, it’s because there is a problem with the standard (or policy).
• Requests from users and management—Make it easy to obtain feedback on people’s actual experience with complying with the standards. Major requests should be formally documented and sent to the policy change control board. However, don’t ignore the feedback about what’s causing people concern or prompting questions about the document.
• Changes to the organization—Companies come and go. Mergers and acquisitions happen constantly. Should you find yourself in a situation where your organization has bought or sold a division and you need to revisit the policies and standards for the combined organization, use the tools and techniques you’ve learned in this chapter to help resolve conflicts or fill in gaps that come about from the change.