How to Write a Standard Operating Procedure [5 Easy Steps]

how to write a standard operating procedure header

Procedures are essential for making your business as efficient as possible.

Your business already has processes – they’re the repeatable work your employees do every day. Think, approving an invoice, fulfilling orders, etc.

A Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is, on the other hand, the documentation of the process. It helps establish things like what are the different steps, what’s the scope, who’s in charge, etc.

SOPs are helpful for 2 things…

Both of these benefits can have a significant impact on your business, making the work of your employees more efficient.

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Now, you’re probably wondering – where do I start? Well, in this guide, we’re going to explain…

How to Write a Standard Operating Procedure in 5 Steps

Before we dive into the nits and grits of how to write an SOP, you should have a good idea of what the document includes.

Of course, this depends on your specific business needs (making the document meet ISO-9000), for example. Usually, though, the SOP would include…

Most of the information we’ve mentioned is pretty explanatory. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to create a title page, table of contents, etc.

Documenting the procedure, however, can be hard for someone that’s not skilled at process management.

Here’s how to do it right…

Step #1: Gather the Team

Before you can even document the process, you’ll need to pinpoint all the important information.

Chances are, you’re not the one who carries out the process on a daily basis. While you may have a good general idea of what the process consists of, you probably don’t know all the small details that can really affect the outcome.

So, to really get the procedure down correctly, you need to consult with the employees that do it on a regular basis.

Set up a meeting and call all the relevant employees. Ask them to take you through the process step-by-step, explaining every little detail.

Step #2: Define the Scope

Sometimes, processes are interconnected. They can span different teams, departments, etc.

If you start documenting the process without really defining the scope, the end result might end up being too long & complicated.

For a real-life example, we can look at our procedure for publishing content…

  1. The writer creates a draft of a blog post
  2. The editor reviews it & gives feedback
  3. The process is looped until the article is ready to be published
  4. The editor uploads the article on WordPress & optimizes it for SEO
  5. The marketing team gather relevant contact information for backlink outreach
  6. The marketing team send out emails for outreach

Depending on what the purpose of the Standard Operating Procedure is, you’d probably divide the process into 2 parts.

The writing team really don’t need to know what the marketing team does for steps #5 and #6, and vice versa.

If you’re hiring a new writer, they only need to know steps #1 through #4, while marketers would need #5 and #6. So, depending on which department you need the SOP for, you’d limit the scope accordingly.

Step #3: Documenting  the Procedure

This is the bulk work of writing a standard operating procedure – actually creating the documentation.

The most basic option here is using a checklist. This tends to look less like a SOP and more like a grocery list.

todoist checklist screenshot

Basic publishing process checklist using Todoist

You write down the exact tasks needed to be completed for the process to be successful. Then, you either print it out and keep it at the office or publish it somewhere online for your employees to use as a reference.

Checklists, however, are very limiting. For more complex processes, you have different events & outcomes, so you can’t really fit all that into a simple to-do list.

In that case, you’d want to use aworkflow diagram.

client onboarding workflow example

Client onboarding procedure flowchart

The gist of it is, you create a flowchart (or any other flow diagram) that details the different steps of the process, as seen in the example above. The simplest option here is a process flowchart, but you can also go for other map types, such as a Swimlane Diagram or SIPOC.

Finally, you can also use business process management software.

tallyfy screenshot workflow tasks

Instead of creating a physical (or online) process map, you can use the software to do it digitally. This has several added benefits as opposed to the conventional options.

You can, for example, also use the software to keep track of the procedure online. Rather than having to check on your employee whether they’re doing their job right or not, all you have to do is look at the dashboard.

The software lets you know of any problems that might come up – missed deadlines, bottlenecks, etc.

As a result, your processes become much more efficient.

Step #4: List Relevant Information

In most cases, simply looking at a process flowchart isn’t enough to give you all the information about how to carry out the procedure.

You might, for example, need to know where a certain piece of equipment is located. Or, you might need to know the login credentials for some online software.

Hence, you should list out any information that’s necessary to finish the process.

This can be things like…

[BONUS] Step #5:  Define Metrics, Improve the Process & Update the SOP

At this point, you’ve already got the standard operating procedure down. At this point, you can call it a day, skip this step and start implementing the SOP.

You might have, however, realized that there are several potential improvements you could make to the process.

This is pretty standard. Most organizations don’t look back at their processes after defining them, having a “don’t fix what’s not broken” attitude. More often than not, though, there are a lot of benefits to be gained from improving the process.

First, you need to define the right metrics. You can’t really improve something you can’t measure. For manufacturing, it could be product output. For marketing, leads generated per month.

Then, you can try using either one of the following process improvement techniques…

Implementing the SOP

First off, congrats!

At this point, you know everything on how to make a standard operating procedure. Your work, however, isn’t done just yet.

You need to implement the SOP. Meaning, you should make it easily accessible for all of your employees.

The best option here is to make it online. You either put the document on your favorite file-sharing software like Google Docs, or use process management software like Tallyfy if you’re going digital. As a given, all of your key employees should have access to either software.

Or if you’re more old-fashioned, you can always just print out the document and distribute it around the office. It’s usually also a good idea to keep a few extra copies lying around, in case someone needs to find the SOP document in case of an emergency.

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