SOPs should be live documents
They are literally recipes to your success!
If you have to refer to a 1000-page document for every little thing, I’m sure that sounds awful already. But, do you know what’s worse? If all of that is not accurate or adequate and is forced upon you.
Gone are the times when we were paper bound. We can easily have a simple notepad or google doc open on the side and keep referring to it.
But, do you know what makes it come alive — what makes the users want to look at it every time?
Let’s pretend it’s your SOPs. These basically tell you how it’s done. They remember the finer points that you will not remember the next time. It reminds you of the nuances of doing that task that you painfully discovered last time. They help you offload the task to anyone else without you needing to rack your brains every single time.
More over, if you also add footnotes that explain the reasoning and learnings behind each point, it also becomes a living, shareable reflection of your experiences. Imagine if everyone on your team could do that — it becomes that many times more powerful for you as an organization!
Tell me now, do you not want to start writing & referring to SOPs for every little thing?
All the best!