Review staff suggestions before making them official guidance

What this means for your practice

Distinguish a suggested answer from released guidance and keep the approval route proportionate. People should be able to contribute without silently changing organisational policy.

What to ask before you choose

Follow a suggestion from submission to publication. Other staff should recognise it as a draft until the reviewer accepts it. Keep the decision and reason, including rejected suggestions. An unanswered review queue discourages contributions and allows informal workarounds to spread elsewhere.

Give contributors a clear route to a decision

Let staff describe the problem, their suggested improvement and where they think it should apply. Keep the suggestion recognisably separate from approved instructions while the appropriate reviewer considers it. People should not have to choose between silently editing official guidance and sharing an unofficial workaround in a private chat.

Ask the supplier to demonstrate a suggestion that is accepted, one that needs more information and one that is declined. The contributor should understand the decision and what happens next. Other staff should see the approved answer without accidentally following an unfinished draft. Name reviewers by topic and arrange cover so suggestions do not wait indefinitely for one person. After publication, check whether the change needs communication to affected teams or updates to related pages. A good contribution process makes staff knowledge useful while keeping responsibility for organisational decisions clear. The quality of the route is shown by understandable outcomes, not simply by counting how many suggestions have been submitted.

How to check the result

Measure suggestions awaiting review and corrections after release.