How to write standard operating procedures: a step by step guide

Why most SOPs fail, and where SOP development consultancy helps

Most SOPs fail for one of two reasons. They are written by someone who does not do the job, or they are written once and never touched again. A good procedure is short enough to read, accurate enough to trust and simple enough that a new starter can follow it on day one.

Here is the process we use at Investor Solutions Limited (ISL) when we help companies build SOPs. You can follow it yourself, and where it gets heavy, this is also where SOP development consultancy earns its fee.

Step 1: choose the process to write first

Do not start with everything. Pick the process that causes the most pain: the one with repeated errors, customer complaints or a long training period. One finished, useful SOP will do more for your team’s confidence than twenty half written ones.

Step 2: watch the work and talk to the people doing it

Observe the task as it happens. Ask the person doing it to explain each step and, more importantly, why they do it that way. You will hear about workarounds, unwritten rules and small checks that never appear in any manual. Those details are what make an SOP match reality.

Step 3: map the process from trigger to finish

Write down what starts the process, each step in order, who is responsible, and what the finished result looks like. Pay attention to the hand-offs, where work passes from one person or department to another. That is where delays and mistakes tend to hide. If the map reveals steps that make no sense, note them. Fixing them may be a job for business process re-engineering rather than documentation.

Step 4: draft it in plain language

A workable SOP usually contains a purpose, a scope, the roles involved, the steps themselves, and a note of any records to be completed. Use short sentences and the words your staff actually use. Start each step with a verb. If a step needs a photo, a form or a checklist, attach it instead of describing it at length.

Step 5: test it with someone new

Hand the draft to a person who has never done the task and ask them to follow it without help. Wherever they hesitate, the procedure is unclear. This test is uncomfortable and it is the most useful hour in the whole project.

Step 6: approve and control the document

Give each SOP an owner, a version number and an issue date. Decide who approves changes and where the current copy is kept, so nobody is working from a printout that is two years old. This document control habit is also what auditors look for during ISO 9001:2015 assessments.

Step 7: train the team

Walk staff through the procedure and let them ask questions. Training is where people stop seeing an SOP as paperwork from the office and start seeing it as a tool. Our capacity building work covers this side of implementation.

Step 8: review on a schedule

Businesses change, equipment changes, regulations change. Set a review date for every SOP, and revise it earlier if the process changes. Encourage staff to flag anything that no longer works. An SOP that people are allowed to question stays alive.

When a consultant is worth it

Writing one or two procedures in house is realistic. Writing forty while running a business is not. A consultant helps when you need many SOPs in a short time, when you are heading towards ISO certification, or when earlier attempts sat unused. ISL’s SOP work covers evaluating what you already have, developing new procedures with your team and training staff to follow them. You can see how this works in practice in our article on SOP development consultancy services.

To talk through your own processes, get in touch with our Nairobi team.