Documenting the process you wish you had is worse than documenting the one you have, and it is what most firms do.
The manual describes a thorough process with review steps and sign-offs. The actual process is shorter, because the thorough one was never workable.
Everyone knows this and nobody updates the manual.
Because you are now measured against your own stated standard. A firm that documented a review step and did not perform it has a finding. A firm that documented what it actually does does not.
You will be held to the process you wrote down, not the one you meant.
Template procedures adopted wholesale, or a founder writing an aspirational version during a quiet week.
Neither is dishonest. Both create the same exposure.
Observe what actually happens, for a week, without changing anything. Write that down. Then decide, deliberately, which parts should change.
Two separate activities: describing reality, then improving it. Firms attempt both at once and produce fiction.
You will discover steps that exist for no reason anyone can remember, and steps that everyone performs differently.
Both are more valuable to know than the manual was.
A procedure nobody can read will not be followed, which returns you to the original problem. One page per process beats a binder.
Annually, as part of the compliance review. The question is not whether it is well written. It is whether it is still true.
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