The task
Changing a policy is easy. Finding the eleven other documents that quote the version you just replaced is the work. Configure an agent to compare the old and new text, then search your guidance for anything that still describes the old rule, so the correction list arrives with the announcement instead of six months later.
What you provide
The previous policy version
The text that was in force before the change, with its clause numbering and effective date.
The new policy version
The replacement text with its effective date, so the comparison is between two known versions rather than against a memory.
Your guidance collection
Intranet pages, templates, onboarding material, manager guidance and saved answers that might quote the policy.
Give the agent a clear brief
Use these instructions as a starting point, alongside your approved sources and permissions.
Compare the two versions and state each substantive change, quoting both texts. Search the supplied collection for content that describes the superseded rule, quoting the passage and its location. Separate a direct contradiction from a passage that merely references the policy. Do not edit any document, publish a correction or notify an owner.
How the work comes together
Establish what actually changed
Set the two versions against each other and name the substantive differences. Renumbering and rewording are not changes and should not generate an impact list.
Search for the old rule
Look for the superseded rule wherever it has been restated, not only where the policy is cited by name. The dangerous copies are the ones that paraphrase without attribution.
List it for the owners
Return each affected passage with its location and the change that contradicts it, grouped by the team that owns the document.
Illustrative example · fictional data
The copies that outlived the policy
An illustrative review after a fictional change to a notice-period rule, searched across an internal guidance collection.
| Where | What it still says | Relationship to the change |
|---|---|---|
| Manager guidance p4 | States the previous notice period as current | Direct contradiction |
| Onboarding deck, slide 12 | Paraphrases the old rule, policy not named | Direct contradiction |
| Intranet policy index | Links to the policy without quoting it | Reference only, no edit needed |
The second row is why this playbook exists. Searching for the policy name would never have found it.
The human review
Each document owner decides what to correct and when. The agent produces the list; the editing, the approval and the announcement stay with your teams.
Set it up for your team
Keep both versions
The comparison needs the superseded text. If old versions are overwritten in place, this playbook has nothing to compare against.
Scope the collection honestly
Point it at the places guidance actually lives, including decks and templates. A search limited to the policy library will report a clean result that is wrong.
Agree what counts as affected
Decide whether a passing reference needs review or only a direct contradiction does, so the list stays actionable.
Check the result before scaling
Run it against a policy change your team has already worked through, and compare with the corrections that were actually made. The measure is passages missed, especially unattributed paraphrases.
Keep the data in the right place
This playbook reads across your whole internal guidance estate, which makes its access scope the thing to get right. A local deployment keeps the collection and the resulting list inside your network.
Explore deployment optionsQuestions & answers
Will it update the affected documents?
No. It lists them with the contradicting passage quoted. Editing and republishing stay with the owner of each document.
What if we no longer have the old version?
Then the comparison cannot be made properly. Keeping superseded versions is a prerequisite, not an optional extra.
Does it find copies that do not name the policy?
That is the point of it. A paraphrase with no attribution is the copy most likely to survive a manual sweep, so the search works on the rule rather than the title.