Real Day 7: Write one SOP, Delegate one SOP
30-Day Biz Owner Challenge | Day 7
Real Day 7: Write one SOP, Delegate one SOP
Womp womp womp…I was trying to schedule Day 7: Send three customer emails for Tuesday, but accidentally hit send on Sunday. So that’s now our “Day 6” post for Monday, and this is our real Day 7 post for Tuesday. My bad.
In my first year, I fought against writing SOPs. I knew they’d be all be changing so quickly, I just didn’t get the point. It felt like micromanagement to document processes in such mind-numbing detail.
Since then, I’ve come to appreciate what SOPs do — they let a new person tackle a project with minimal hands-on training. They allow you to create institutional knowledge that is outside of individuals’ brains.
This saves time for both new hires & old hires — it allows new hires who are self-starters to excel. It allows old hires to focus their training efforts on the truly hard stuff — tasks requiring difficult-to-document judgement calls.
You and I both know we have probably dozens of processes in our business that could be documented.
Today, you’re going to do things, in this order:
Pick a process you do (not that someone else does). Write the SOP.
If you need a template, ChatGPT is your friend. But I like to name the SOP with the end state of what’ll happen once the SOP is executed.
For example, I don’t name a payroll SOP as “Payroll SOP”. I call it “SOP: Weekly payroll is processed.” It’s a minor difference, but will make life easier as the SOP list gets longer.
It’s important that the person who DOES the process is the one to WRITE the SOP. So this has to be a process you actively execute everyday.
Identify a process one of your direct reports does that you don’t really understand.
Said differently, if they called out sick, would you be able to execute that SOP perfectly, the way that employee does it? Not the way you used to do it before you delegated it, but the way it’s done now? If not, that’s a prime target.
Give your direct report your SOP as an example template and ask them to document the SOP you’ve identified.
Review the result and see if you can follow it cleanly. Put yourself in the shoes of a new hire. Provide some feedback and have your report take a second crack.
Finish this day with two solid SOPs.
Tips:
You may need to start by listing all the processes you actually do. What’s your job description? List each process you do in a Google Doc. That’s your SOP table of contents. If you need help with this, read my post about the RACI Matrix and writing Job Descriptions.
Make a new Google Doc, with the title being one of the processes from your table of contents.
This is how you’ll eventually be able to replace yourself as CEO/COO/GM — whatever role you want to delegate.
Sometimes direct reports are resistant to writing SOPs. They may feel like you’re trying to commoditize their experience. Do your best to explain that this is not to replace them — it’s to allow them to grow out of their role and into a larger one. The more their tasks can be pushed down the org chart, the more they can move up it.
That’s Day 6! Thanks for following along.
Thanks,
Guesswork Investing