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I am looking for guidelines or help on writing SOPs. Is there software that can help with those? Templates? - M.P.

In the LaunchX System we have information on developing the SOPs that your business may need included in Unit 4.

In general, think through your business’s sales cycle step-by-step to determine which processes need to be completed in exactly the same way every time, no matter who is doing them. These are the processes that need SOPs. Some SOPs will require very detailed procedures while others will be general checklists of things to be done. Use your judgment in deciding the level of specificity within each SOP you choose to implement. For each SOP you identify as needed, ask yourself what the risk is to your business if the SOP is not followed. If the risk is low or non-critical, consider eliminating the written SOP. You don’t want to hamstring your employees with too many written procedures, however, you do need to have the critical processes memorialized in written SOPs.

You do not need software to write a good SOP, what you do need is a thorough, detailed knowledge of your business operations. The basic components of an SOP are the name of the business process, the objective of the SOP, the effective date (and the revision date), when the procedure is performed, and the specific steps to be done. Each step should have a minimum of the step number, a description of what is to be done, and who is to do that step. No step should be more than one action or be done by more than one person.

For each SOP, work through the business process one step at a time and write down what is done. If something must be done a precise way, write those instructions down. If the employee has some latitude in how to accomplish the task, then the step is getting that task done. Once you have all the steps written down, try to perform the process again using only the written procedure. If  you have someone who is unfamiliar with the task work through it, you will quickly find where you have assumed too much or provided too much detail. Finally, you can use any word processing program to type up those SOPs. Unless you are in a highly regulated industry with thousands of SOPs, your word processor is all the software you need.

Remember, the objective of all SOPs is to provide a means of training the staff to do specific tasks so that those tasks are always done the same way, with the same outcome.