Compliance requires defined and documented Policies.
The Policies become drivers for the
Processes and Procedures.

Organizations must adhere to external and internal directives set by best practices; laws, standards, terms of a contract, strategic plans, and numerous other directives.  Compliance ensures that the organization is following the requirements of the directive.

Policies, Processes, and Procedures are critical tools an organization requires to adhere to laws, guidelines, standards, etc.  The Policies, Processes, and Procedures define how to adhere to the requirements.  An organization must know if directives are properly being implemented.  An organization needs to know what is currently in effect to determine what is in compliance and what is needed.  Without Policies, Processes, and Procedures, an organization is just guessing.

Policies, Processes, and Procedures provide benchmarks for Compliance.  Using existing Policies, Processes, and Procedures allows the organization to accurately review the current condition.  How does an organization know exactly how their current processes work?  There are too many cases when they don’t.  Therefore, documented Policies, Processes, and Procedures allow the organization to know the processes and make changes as needed.  It allows the organization to audit a process and verify the results.  Without documented Policies, Processes, and Procedures, this cannot be done.

The most important aspect of documented, clearly written Policies, Processes, and Procedures, is that the employees and other resources will understand what is needed from them.  They will have a clearer understanding of what the organization needs to achieve Compliance.  There is a mutual knowledge and understanding.

Policies, Processes, and Procedures need to be modular, contain the proper content types, written in a consistent style, and use a consistent vocabulary.  These qualities allow the documents to be readily modified and easy for the users to reference.   Compliance is essential for the success of an organization.  Establishing Policies, Procedures, Processes which are documented will allow the enterprise to take to proper actions toward Compliance.