Storytime:

Many years ago, I was the word processing supervisor for a commercial real estate firm and one of my tasks was to maintain the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) binder for the office. This was 1987 before networks became mainstream, so there wasn’t a way to share information online yet. I would manually type up the procedure on my high-speed 286 computer, print it on the slowest HP laser printer that ever existed, 3-hole punch that bad boy, then swap out the old information with the new in this giant binder that sat on a communal shelf.

You can probably guess that no one ever used it! The word processors all had their own way of doing things, rarely wrote anything down (ahem job security), and the office manager wasn’t interested in enforcing its usage. I was crushed because being the RULE FOLLOWER that I am, that binder was pristine!

I learned a long time ago that the best system is the one that you will actually use and works best for your team. You can have the most beautiful thing ever, but if no one uses it, it doesn’t matter.

Nowadays we have LOTS of options, both free and paid. In this video, I give you some ideas of SOP tools and programs to house your SOP library:

“Standard Operating Procedures” Video Series

Programs Mentioned in the Video

Looking for a shortcut? Check out my SOP Templates and Process Library!

 

On February 28, 2021   /   Simple Systems in 5 Minutes or Less   /   Leave a comment