RE: Documenting Security Policies and Procedures

Policies - 1-2 pages describing the intent. Short, not big on details.
Procedure - The actual step-by-step.

Policies are reviewed annually and in general updated less often than
that.
Procedures should be reviewed periodically but may also be updated
whenever something changes in the environment.

There can also be Process documents.

Deploying a new server updates a procedure (probably more than one: the
backup procedure, the patch deployment procedure, etc.). It would not
update a policy.
Migrating a workload from Oracle to SQL Server would result in updates
to procedures but still would not update policy.

Policy documents can be provided to clients or business partners to
demonstrate sounds business practices. Procedures may contain
proprietary information including configuration settings and would not
be disseminated outside the firm. Either can be provided to auditors but
in general they want to see policy & evidence.

Really, the documents have different intents:
Policy should only change when the focus or requirements of the business
change.
Procedures change to accommodate how technology is managed or (in
general/non-IT) how to accomplish business goals.

As this relates to IT Security, I'd suggest reviewing the ISO17799 (or
BS7799) and ISO27001 documents.

Also, our Policies must be approved not only by the Management Executive
Committee but also by Legal. They extend way outside of IT. Procedures
can be department- or even workgroup-level. Really, does Management
want to be bothered to review/approve documentation whenever a new
server is deployed or a change is made to the nightly backup routine?