Standard Operating Procedures

Do you find yourself repeating the same tasks month-over-month or perhaps you are answering the same questions from your team members...you know "how do you do that again?" Yes this can be distracting for sure, but when you are asked these spur-of-the-moment "how to" questions, are you providing a consistent response that aligns with your corporate documentation guidelines and quality assurance measures?

For us here at Moore Details Inc. we have developed a comprehensive library of Standard Operating Procedures that we reference on a daily basis. So how do you know if you need Standard Operating Procedures or SOP's? And what are they anyway? The formal definition is..."A standard operating procedure (SOP) is a set of step-by-step instructions compiled by an organization to help workers carry out complex or routine operations".

So based on that description, does that sound like something that might benefit your organization? If so, here's how you can get started with your own SOP's.

The first step is to identify your complex or routine tasks, these may be simple recurring tasks or more complex quarterly or annual task. So now that you have identified some of these repetitive or complex tasks, pick one to use as a sample while you develop a template; for example, how do you want these instructions laid out? What information should be included? Who is your audience? When developing standard operating procedures it's important to remain consistant in how they look, it's also important to ensure that they are concise and simplified. The readers of these procedures will need to focus on the instructional value of the procedure itself not how "flashy" it may presented.

Once you have decided on a format you will need to include some key information on your SOP, for example at Moore Details Inc. we give the procedure a title, we include the creation date, a revision number and we assign all of our procedures with a numerical reference. The numerical reference may seem like an overkill when you first get started, but as you build your procedure library, it will grow quite fast and it will be very helpful when referencing specific procedures.

As I noted above the number of procedures you develop can add up depending on the nature of your firm and its recurring activities. This is where creating a library used to sort and reference the procedures is very beneficial. We store our procedures as both the original file (in case edits are required) and as a PDF version in Box, then we directly link to those procedures from our database created within Smartsheet. This has proven to be a very helpful resource for our team, all they have to do is find the procedure they want from the library and click on the link.

Our Founder and President of Moore Details Inc. Jennie Moore describes the benefits of using Standard Operating Procedures in your practice; check out her video below!

Remember too that these procedures don't need to be limited to your internal organizations processes, we find a large number of our procedures are actually "client specific" and "App" specific. We even have procedures for our workflows for client implementations and bookkeeping continuity.

Standard Operating Procedures have also proven to be a valuable instructional tool for new staff members; we can point them to the library of procedures and they can follow the step-by-step process that we have laid out. Quite often our procedures are very visual with screen captures and sequential process how to's and even hyperlinks to supporting instructions. We also have developed instructional video procedures, these are particularly helpful for complex workflows that can be explained better visually, then in writing. Keep in mind though that software can change very rapidly so this approach to a procedure can date itself to the version of software that it is captured from.

So what are the overall benefits from developing a library of Standard Operating Procedures? Your SOPs can achieve efficiency, uniformity and maintain internal quality control, while limiting "bad habits", non-compliance and the ever persistant "hey how do you do this distractions".

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Brian Moore is a Strategic Partner at Moore Details Inc.