Writing Procedures and Work Instructions: short, usable, audit-proof

12 modules · about 62 minutes · final test with 31 questions, 25 correct to pass · certificate of participation as PDF

What this course is about

Since 2015 ISO 9001 has not required a single procedure any more – and yet most small companies have too many of them, in the wrong form, and nobody reads them. This course tidies up: it shows when a process sheet is enough, when a procedure is needed, when a work instruction at the workplace achieves more than any manual chapter – and when a photo with three arrows is the best instruction.

No registration needed. We only ask for your name and e-mail address before the final test – just for your certificate. Your progress is saved in this browser. You can stop at any time and continue later.

Module 1 of 12

What the standard really requires: no procedure is mandatory

Up to the 2008 edition ISO 9001 required six documented procedures (control of documents, records, internal audit, nonconforming product, corrective and preventive action). Since 2015 there is not a single mandatory procedure any more. Clause 7.5.1 b) says: the organisation determines the documented information it considers necessary for the effectiveness of its QMS. The note to 7.5.1 adds that extent and form depend on size, complexity and the competence of the people.

The only yardstick: What happens if it is not written down? Does a new employee then do it wrong, and is the error expensive (rework, complaint, danger)? Then an instruction. Does he do it right because it is obvious or was shown, and the inspection catches the error anyway? Then none.

Three mistakes almost every small company makes: (1) writing instructions because “the auditor wants that” — he wants records, not paper. (2) Adopting instructions from a purchased set of templates that do not fit the company — in the audit the surest nonconformity (“You write X but do Y”). (3) Every instruction as a Word file with cover sheet, distribution list, change history — three pages of administration for five lines of content.

Module 2 of 12

Process sheet, procedure, work instruction — or nothing: the decision rule

Decision tree (four questions, top to bottom):

1. Does it describe the order of steps across several people? → Process sheet (almost always enough).
2. Is a sub-flow so branched that the process sheet cannot carry it (more than three if-then)? → Procedure.
3. Is it about a hands-on task where a wrong value is expensive (dimension, time, temperature, order, setting)? → Work instruction — and where the hands are.
4. Can the task be shown in a photo, a sketch or a checklist? → That instead of text.

What needs no instruction: basic professional skills (welding, bookkeeping, programming), things the supplier specifies (manufacturer's assembly instructions — refer to them, do not copy them), one-off cases that never recur.

Rules of thumb for a small company: 0 to 3 procedures, 3 to 8 work instructions, plus checklists. Anyone with more than 15 instructions has either forgotten a process sheet or bought template documents.

📄 Decision tree with four questions, boundaries of the three levels, examples and rules of thumb (German – English version to follow)

Module 3 of 12

The structure on one page: purpose, scope, flow, responsibility, records, status

An instruction has six fields — no more:

The flow as a table is the most important decision: four columns, one row per step, no running text. Every step starts with an action verb (records, checks, releases, reports). What does not fit in one row is two steps.

For work instructions the field “responsibility” shrinks to one line (“Execution: final inspector; release on deviation: foreman”) and the field “flow” becomes step – how – target value/check – aids.

Leave out: cover sheet, distribution list, change history (that is in the document list), definitions of terms, quotations from the standard, table of contents, signature fields on every page. An instruction that does not fit on one page either describes two things or too much.

📄 Procedure template (one page, six fields, flow table) in Word (German – English version to follow)

📄 Work instruction template (one page, step – how – target value – aids, picture field) in Word (German – English version to follow)

Module 4 of 12

Writing rules: active voice, numbers instead of adjectives, one sentence per step

The test: give the instruction to someone who has never done the task. Can he carry it out alone tomorrow — without asking? If not, a step, a value or a picture is missing. If he asks “Why?”, the purpose sentence is missing.

Employees with little knowledge of the company language: short sentences, pictures, pictograms, numbers; where needed the table bilingual (two columns “how”) — that is not a luxury but the instruction that gets read. No automatic translation without proofreading by a native speaker in the company.

Before and after: a typical instruction “Final inspection” from a purchased template set has 1.5 pages, twelve sentences in the passive, no target value. After the rules: a table with six rows, three dimensions with tolerance, a photo of the inspection station, status and approval. Both conform to the standard; only one is used.

📄 The eight writing rules with examples and a final inspection instruction before/after (German – English version to follow)

Module 5 of 12

Picture, photo, video, checklist: when text is the wrong form

The standard expressly names graphics and electronic media as formats. For many tasks a picture is the better instruction — above all where “right” is a state, not a flow.

What every form needs, whether paper, photo or video: unambiguous identification (number, title), status (date or version), approval (function), protection against unintended alteration (lamination, PDF, read-only rights) and an entry in the document list. A printed photo without status is “uncontrolled documentation” in the audit — with the status in the corner it is an exemplary work instruction.

Practice: the fitter photographs the finished control cabinet, the foreman draws three circles into it (“strain relief — earthing — labelling”), status and initials in the corner, laminated on the wall. Ten minutes — and better than any page of text.

Module 6 of 12

Examples by sector: which three to eight instructions a company really needs

How to tell that an instruction is missing: the same error twice in the defect tally sheet; a new employee asks the same thing three times; two colleagues do it differently and both “correctly”; the customer complains about something that “everybody actually knows”.

How to tell that an instruction can go: status older than three years and nobody can say where it is; it describes what the software enforces; it repeats the process sheet; it is for a machine that no longer exists.

📄 Sets of instructions by sector: almost always needed / almost always superfluous, with tell-tale signs of missing and superfluous instructions (German – English version to follow)

Module 7 of 12

Approval, status and distribution: how the instruction stays valid

Approval: whoever owns the process may approve — the foreman his work instruction, management the procedure with customer impact. The writer (often the quality manager) does not approve himself. The approval is initials with date in the header or a note in the document list. No signature folder.

Status: date in the format YYYY-MM (with several changes in one month YYYY-MM-DD) — in the file name (WI-04_Final-inspection_2026-10.docx) and in the footer. Version numbers (1.0, 1.1) are permitted, but a date tells the auditor immediately whether the document is current.

The document list is the only register: number · title · type (MA/PS/PR/WI/FO/CL) · status · approval · location · displayed where · last review. No change history in every document — the list carries “changed on, what” in one column.

The change in three steps: (1) copy the file, new status in the name, change, have it approved. (2) Update the list. (3) Withdraw old notices — the most frequent audit finding is the old work instruction on the wall next to the new one in the system. Anyone with notices keeps the column “displayed at” in the list and swaps on the same day.

Digital distribution: one storage location (cloud folder, wiki, tablet at the workplace) with read access for all and write access for the quality manager; PDF for notices; no copies in private folders. The rule is in the manual, chapter 7 — a small company does not need a separate “document control” procedure (the course “Document Control under 7.5” goes deeper).

📄 Document list for manual, process sheets, procedures, work instructions, forms and checklists with status, approval, location, display and review date (Excel) (German – English version to follow)

Module 8 of 12

Instruction is not briefing: how the instruction gets into people's heads

An instruction that nobody knows is an audit finding, not a benefit. The standard separates cleanly: 7.5 is the document, 7.2 the competence. Both must come together.

Briefing at the workplace, in three steps: (1) The foreman shows the task with the work instruction in hand and names the target values. (2) The employee does it himself, the foreman watches. (3) The employee does it alone, the result is checked. Duration: 20 minutes for one work instruction. Record: one line in the briefing record (date, WI number, employee, briefer, “independent from”).

With every change of a work instruction the affected employees are briefed again — one line in the record, five minutes. That is the evidence that the change has arrived (7.5.3: changes controlled).

In the qualification matrix each task has its level (briefed / independent / may brief); the WI number belongs in the column heading. That way the auditor sees in one table who knows which instruction.

What the auditor asks the employee: “Where does it say how you do that?” (he points at the notice) · “What do you do if the dimension is wrong?” (what-to-do-if line) · “When was that last changed, and how did you learn about it?” (briefing record). Three answers in their own words — nothing more is needed.

Module 9 of 12

Instructions in the audit: what the auditor asks — and the five most frequent findings

The auditor does not check instructions at the desk but at the workplace, backwards: he takes the last order, goes to the station, asks the employee, looks at the notice, compares with the system and the process sheet.

The ten-minute check before the audit: walk-through with the document list — compare every notice with the status in the list; ask three employees “Where does it say how you do that?”; find the last scrap and ask which rule applied.

The best answer in the audit to “Why do you have no instruction for that?”: “Because the check in step 6 catches the error and there has been none in two years — here is the defect tally sheet.” That is risk-based thinking, and the auditor notes it as a strength.

📄 Ten-minute check before the audit: notices against the document list, three employee questions, the five most frequent findings with avoidance (German – English version to follow)

Module 10 of 12

Case study: Nordlicht IT Service — write two instructions, sort out eleven

Nordlicht IT Service (fictitious; any resemblance to existing companies is coincidental): IT support and cloud set-up for small businesses in Flensburg, Germany, 9 employees, certified since 2023. Shortly before the initial audit, in April 2023, management additionally bought a template set of eleven procedures and inserted the company name. Status of all eleven: 2023-04. Nobody has opened them since; the technicians work from the ticket system and experience. In the last audit there was a minor nonconformity: PR-07 “Control of documents” describes an approval procedure with signatures that is not practised. Time of the exercise: January 2027 — with the transition to ISO 9001:2026 (transition day 19 January 2027) Nordlicht also tidies up the instructions.

The stock: PR-01 Management review · PR-02 Internal audit · PR-03 Corrective action · PR-04 Procurement · PR-05 Customer-related processes · PR-06 Service provision · PR-07 Control of documents · PR-08 Control of records · PR-09 Training · PR-10 Measuring equipment · PR-11 Control of nonconforming services.

What else there is: a manual with 13 process sheets (status 2026-01, well maintained), a qualification matrix, a ticket system with mandatory fields, and the disruption of 14 July 2026 (cloud outage, three customers learned of it only through their own calls).

Task (60 minutes):

1. Sort the eleven procedures with the decision tree: keep — into the process sheet — delete. Give a one-sentence reason for each decision.
2. Write the work instruction “Create and prioritise a ticket” (template 03): steps, priority levels with response times, what-to-do-if.
3. Write the procedure “Informing customers of disruptions” (template 02): purpose, scope, flow with times, responsibility, record — reference ISO 9001:2026, 8.2.1.
4. Enter both in the document list (download 06).

📄 Nordlicht: the eleven template procedures with short content, extracts from process sheets and ticket system, disruption report, task (German – English version to follow)

📄 Model solution: sorting of the eleven procedures with reasons, ticket work instruction and disruption procedure written out, entry in the document list (German – English version to follow)

Learning point: of eleven instructions two remain — and neither existed before. The template set produced paper, the audit a nonconformity; the two new instructions solve a real problem (the disruption of 14 July) and make the service learnable for new technicians.

Module 11 of 12

Records and maintenance: document list, annual review, deletion list

Records the auditor wants to see:

Annual review (30 minutes, before the internal audit): print the document list, walk-through: (1) Status at the workplace = list? (2) Does the employee do it the way it is written? If not: change the instruction or brief the employee — decide, do not leave both. (3) Was there a reason for the instruction during the year (error, new employee, change)? If not for three years: delete and enter in the deletion list.

Deletion list: number · title · removed on · reason (contained in the process sheet / software enforces it / machine gone / never needed). It sits behind the document list and is the best answer in the audit to “Where is your procedure for …?”.

📄 Checklist for your own documentation: 15 criteria (mature/almost/not yet), deletion list as a template (German – English version to follow)

Module 12 of 12

Procedure in our company

Your company completes this module. The general part of the training ends here; what follows, only your company knows:

Companies with a company account of the Academy receive this module with their own details; participants then see the names, dates and filing locations of their company. Without customisation: ask your management or your quality manager where these details are laid down in your company — usually in the quality manual.

Final test

31 questions, one correct answer each. You need 25 correct answers to pass (80 %). Scoring happens on the server — there is no answer key on this page.

Your result