Chat GPT missed the most important pieces, so here we are. I want to walk you through how we think about and create process documentation for our clients – you deserve something more nuanced, fun, and useful than what AI is kicking out right now.

What is an SOP, and why the weird name?

It turns out one of the most searched phrases around the topic of processes is “SOP what.” You can feel the boredom and frustration coming through in those two words, can’t you? 

I just imagine someone, coming off of reading yet another LinkedIn post about why SOPs matter, throwing that phrase into Google and hoping someone will share something remotely interesting. 

Here are the basics: SOP stands for Standard Operating Procedure. It immediately makes me think of a three-inch binder full of words like “critical” and “policy” in Times New Roman. At its core, though, an SOP is “articulating how a task is done here so we know what a win looks like and so someone else can do it, too.” 

These are the three key pieces:

• Articulating how a task is done here: You don’t have to have a perfect automated workflow to make a great SOP. Everything you do, you do somehow. You already have systems for your work – the only question is how intentional they are and how accessible they are to other brains than your own. 
• So we know what a win looks like: This element gets skipped in most SOP templates. How do you know that someone’s done a good job with any given task? How can they clear a bar if we don’t tell them where it is? 
• And so someone else can do it, too: The trickiest part of writing down a process is making it make sense to someone who’s new to it. You know an SOP is great when someone can read it and make a decent first attempt at following it, even if they’re completely new to the process in question

If the word “SOP” isn’t doing it for you, other options are “playbook,” “how-to guide,” “recipe,” “action plan,” or simply “process.”

What SOPs should I make?

If you ever want to sell your business, you want to make sure every repeating activity in your business ultimately gets its own SOP. But a) you’re probably not planning to sell tomorrow, and b) not every SOP is equally important. 

A good place to start is to pick three processes you want to write down. Here are a few great reasons for picking a specific process, but you can tackle it however you’d like:

• It’s a process you’d love to delegate to someone else
• It’s a really easy process you know you could capture quickly to give yourself a win
• It’s a really hard process you’re wanting to spend time detangling or improving
• The process has higher stakes – it impacts your customer experience, finances, etc.
• The process has lower stakes and feels less intimidating to delegate
• The process is causing a lot of pain, confusion, or stress to you or your team
• The process feels like a black box – you’re not sure how your team is doing it…or you’re not entirely sure how you’re doing it

A good place to start is with capturing a process for something you do in one sitting, whether it takes 5 minutes or a couple of hours. It’s a little trickier to capture something you do in bits and pieces over multiple days (you can build up to those).

How do I make an SOP?

Every SOP has four essential elements: 

1. An outcome
2. Success metrics
3. A checklist
4. A how-to (ideally a video)

Outcome = why you’re doing this thing instead of doing nothing

What will you/your team/your customers/the world get out of this thing happening? It’s important to start with why a process matters and what the finish line looks like. 

Here are some examples – see if you can guess what SOPs they’re related to: 

• Our sponsors know exactly what to expect in the process of partnering with us, and how it will benefit them
• An attendee feels immediately welcomed and supported as soon as they walk in the door of the event
• Attendees feel connected to our community and have a memorable experience with their family and friends 
• Attendees are excited by our vendors and eager to purchase from them 
• Our vendors are paid quickly so they are excited to continue working with us
• The food we provide is nutritious, delicious, and on budget

Success metrics = all of the things you would see in an incredible version of this task being done

One of the biggest obstacles to delegation is that your team members will think and operate differently than you do. There are a lot of different ways to provide nutritious, delicious, and on-budget food (and what qualifies as ‘delicious’ is subjective). Success metrics allow you to put some specific parameters around what you want to see. 

Carrying forward the food example, you may list success metrics like these:

• Lunch will include one main, one crunchy side (like chips), one veggie, one fruit, and one dessert
• There should be three options for the main dish
• The main dish should be able to be enjoyed room temperature and not require silverware (i.e. sandwiches and wraps) 
• A gluten-free, dairy free option should be made available
• Lunch must be set up no sooner than 11:15 and fully ready no later than 11:45
• The vendor utilized must not be XXXX company (we had a bad experience in the past) 

Other than fully defining what a ‘win’ looks like for your process, this list serves you in another way: it also defines the edges of where you can interfere. If a team member sets up a meal plan that hits your outcome and all of your success metrics, you’re not allowed to tweak the percentage of bbq chips compared to plain chips (no matter how badly you want to). Your job is to let your team own this process independently. If something matters a lot to you, it should be incorporated into the success metrics. 

A checklist = a very high-level reminder of all of the steps that need to happen

Pilots and surgeons use checklists all the time – they’re the part of an SOP even a trained owner of a process can reference regularly to make sure they didn’t miss anything. 

The truth is that no one is likely to read your detailed how-to instructions more than a few times. Once they feel like they ‘get it,’ they’ll stop – and that’s where the danger starts, especially for any process with more than a few steps. They’re at risk of forgetting something, which the checklist helps them avoid. 

Here’s an example of a checklist for the process of onboarding a new sponsor:

1. Send welcome email with festival details and information form
2. Review information form
3. Collect logo and brand assets
4. Schedule and host benefits review call
5. Communicate marketing materials deadlines
6. Add to website and program
7. Set up sponsor portal access
8. Assess on-site needs
9. Introduce team members
10. Send calendar invites for key events
11. Conduct pre-event check-in call

The goal here isn’t to teach someone how to do any of these steps, but to help your sponsorship coordinator walk through this process flawlessly every single time. 

We want to never again hear, “oops- I forgot I was supposed to add sponsors to the website” weeks after the fact.  

A how-to = a way for someone to learn the process for the first few times. 

Videos are the fastest way to create/update this section, and they’re also the best way to learn a process. The next time you complete a process, just record yourself doing it and talk through what’s happening! 

For processes that involve a lot of clicking (like filling out a detailed online form), a tool like Scribe can be incredibly helpful. It will record a process and automatically take a screenshot for every step you take. 

As someone is learning a process, they’ll likely do the following:

1. Watch the video
2. Watch the video in increments while they try to do the process (pausing and restarting as they go)
3. Try to do the process without the video, and skip ahead to portions of the video they need to review when they get stuck
4. Never watch the video again (which is where the checklist comes in)

Once you’ve handed off a process, any SOP updates can be done by them. You could even ask them to create a new video once they’ve mastered the process as a way to solidify it (the best way to learn is to teach). 

Can I add more to my SOP?

Once you’ve mastered the essential SOP, you may find that you want to add other elements. Options include:

• Triggering event/timing
• Time to complete
• Upstream/downstream processes (what comes before/after this process)
• Reference material
• Scope
• Policy
• Case Studies 

The best way to know if you need to add a new element is if your team is feeling any confusion around something or if you find yourself answering questions. There’s no need to overcomplicate things, though! 

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A great first step after reading this would be to pick those three SOPs you want to start with. After that, write out the outcomes for each one. Take it one step at a time! 

If you’d rather meet a dung beetle up close than write one of these, you’re not alone. Smooth Operator exists to spare you this entire process – you can apply for a free strategy session to learn more right here. 

p.s. I’ve created a detailed Google Docs and Notion template for this kind of SOP, complete with two full samples you can use to make your own documentation easier. If you’d like to download the template for yourself, you can purchase it for only $14.97 right here.