SOP From How It Actually Works
Documents a process as it is really performed, including the undocumented workarounds, so the SOP describes reality rather than intent.
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Running it, start to finish
- Interview whoever actually performs the process, not whoever designed it.
- Verify each step by watching it done once.
- Route the improvement backlog to system owners.
What you get back
The output this produces, every time.
- Documents the workarounds explicitly rather than the official route nobody follows.
- Captures the judgement calls, which is where the same process diverges between two people.
- Turns the workarounds into a ranked improvement backlog instead of preserving them forever.
Getting better results
Where this usually goes wrong, and how to avoid it.
- Interview the person who does it. and press on the 'and then you have to' moments. Those asides are the workarounds, and they never appear in a written description.
- Send section 7 onward. to whoever owns the systems. An SOP that documents dysfunction without routing it anywhere makes the dysfunction permanent.
- State the audience honestly. An SOP for a new starter and one for an expert are different documents. Writing one for both produces something neither uses.
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Written for The AI University. Every prompt in this library is original work — authored, tested and revised here, not collected from elsewhere. 365 of them, free with an account.