What is an SOP? A Guide to Writing Standard Procedures

What sounds more dry and boring than standard operating procedures? Even the acronym SOP doesn’t help the appeal.

But the reality is that relevant, well-written SOPs are foundational to business growth.

Smart, growth-oriented organizations are figuring that out. Searches for standard operating procedures have jumped up nearly 40% over the past five years alone. As companies put a new focus on driving operational efficiency, SOPs are proving to be a critical piece of the puzzle.

So forget about that dusty binder sitting on a shelf covered in cobwebs. 

In this guide, we’ll show you how to create standard operating procedures that make a real difference to your business. And that your people will actually appreciate and use it. 

We’ll dive into the what, why, and how—and even share tips along the way for how to level up your SOPs with visuals and videos (which is easier than you may think with Camtasia and Snagit).

What is an SOP (standard operating procedure), with examples?

Standard operating procedures go by many names and can even take different forms. Some know them as process documents, business playbooks, or even as old-school training manuals. However, people who use an SOP might call it their cheat sheet, job aid, or quick reference card.

At its core, a standard operation procedure outlines step-by-step instructions representing the ideal or optimal process for team members to complete a routine task. SOPs encourage consistent, high-quality work regardless of who completes it.

In industries with many regulatory requirements or high-stakes environments, the SOP might include detailed steps. However, in many business settings, the SOP is more of a step-by-step guide than a script, leaving some room for interpretation—and even innovation—to improve the process.

Examples of standard operating procedures you might find in various departments:

• HR: Hire and onboard a new team member
• Accounting: Set up a new vendor in the billing platform
• IT: Respond to a system outage
• Marketing: Publish a blog post
• Customer service: Process a refund
• Sales: Nurture a lead from creation to close
• Customer research: Conduct and summarize a set of customer interviews
• Engineering: Complete a security audit

Why are SOPs important for business operations?

Many teams and organizations discover their need for standard operating procedures in a moment of crisis. A long-time team member gives notice and years of process knowledge are about to walk out the door. The org hits hyper-growth, creating bottlenecks around the original team. Investors demand short-term profit growth, making it imperative to eliminate waste and redundancy. 

SOPs can be a painkiller to help an organization scale operations up or down. But they’re better as a vitamin, implemented before a crisis, honing business operations with time and repeated use. 

When SOPs are used as a vitamin, organizations benefit every day from increased:

• Consistency: which improves quality and customer experience
• Efficiency: which reduces waste and rework
• Compliance: which reduces the risk of regulatory violations
• Staffing flexibility: which reduces the cost of turnover or outsourcing

In short, the organization is stronger and more agile when the next crisis comes along.

Key elements of a standard operating procedure (SOP)

Components vary, but some of the most common elements of an SOP are:

• Context and metainformation about the SOP:
  • What is this document intended to do? 
  • What is it not intended to do?
  • What sections are included in the document (table of contents)?
• Roles and responsibilities:
  • Who does what? 
  • How often will they perform the steps? 
  • What is the intended result? 
• Step-by-step instructions: 
  • How do they do it? 
  • What steps should they follow? 
• Tools and resources: 
  • What tools and other materials will they use? 

How to write an effective SOP

Step 1: Know your audience

It’s impossible to dial in the right level of detail in your SOP unless you know what your audience already knows and what they don’t know. 

Assume they know too much, and you risk skipping critical steps. Assume they know too little, and you risk authoring a tedious, 100-page guide they never reference because they “already know this stuff.”

The curse of knowledge describes a universal human experience: once something becomes familiar to you, it’s hard to remember what it was like before you knew it. 

The concept can be humorously illustrated by the Exact Instructions Challenge, which asks one person to document a series of steps that will be followed very literally by another person who seems to know nothing about the task.

Use research methods like conversation, observation, and surveying to put yourself in the shoes of your audience. Dispel the curse of knowledge as much as possible and provide instructions at the right level of detail. 

Pro Tip: Also consider where the procedure might take place. In industries like manufacturing or healthcare, addressing potential health and safety concerns in your SOP might be critical. 

Step 2: Identify the task or process

Define the priority task(s) or process(es) you will cover. 

A simple way to do this: talk with a manager or stakeholder accountable for business operations. Or talk with individual contributors who are responsible for doing the tasks. Ideally, you’ll want to consult both. Tasks that have a high error/failure rate and tasks that are infrequently performed (and thus easily forgotten) are often high-ROI places to start.

Even if you are handed a list of tasks to document, it’s wise to ask enough questions to build confidence that those tasks were validated as the ones most urgently needed. And fully understand the context in which the SOP will be used. 

Step 3: Gather input from team members

If you are familiar with the procedure you’ll be documenting, create a rough outline based on your knowledge and validate it with team members who perform that procedure regularly. Insights from these subject matter experts (SMEs) can help ensure your SOP covers all necessary steps, doesn’t include a lot of extraneous detail, and adopts the language actually used in that functional area.

If you’re not familiar with the task, observe an SME performing the task and capture it using a smartphone camera or screen recorder. Build your outline by reviewing the recording and summarizing the steps taken by the SME. 

Caution: don’t confuse the SME with your intended audience—remember that the SME suffers from the curse of knowledge, and they might even say things like “We all ignore the official instructions and do the task this way instead.” 

So, cross-reference what SMEs tell you with what you learned about your audience in Step 1 and what you learned about management priorities in Step 2. Share your outline with stakeholders early and often, while it’s easy to edit. 

Sometimes the very act of documenting standard operating procedures brings to light just how non-standard your operations really are!

Step 4: Create a clear, actionable format

Standard operating procedures come in many formats. But the most common are:

• Checklist: best for tasks that do not have to be performed in a specific order 
• Numbered steps: best when the sequence of steps matter
• Flowchart: best for branching (if/then) scenarios

[VISUAL: 3-panel image showing a simplified example of each format side by side]

Use formatting like indenting, bullets, and bolding to emphasize the structure of the task and make the content easier to follow. Subtasks should be nested within the parent task via indenting. Bulleted and numbered lists help the reader keep track of where they are in a sequence. Bolding puts emphasis on key information. 

Step 5: Include visuals for clarity

While creating your SOP as a wall of text might be tempting, research shows that visuals are a critical ingredient. Two out of three employees carry out tasks better when communicated visually vs. non-visually, and they absorb information 7% faster with visuals than without. 

An easy way to include visuals in technical SOPs is to use Snagit to capture screenshots of software interfaces or process steps. You can even repurpose parts of the recordings from your SMEs during Step 3. 

You can use Snagit to crop, remove sensitive information, mark up, and otherwise edit screenshots (or photos taken with your smartphone), then send them to your authoring platform or document editor of choice. 

Or go a step further and use Snagit’s built-in layout tools and templates to generate simple SOPs in a variety of formats without leaving the tool. These SOP templates, designed by a professional information developer, can be shared digitally or printed and posted.

In some workplaces, like a shop floor, SOPs may need to be printed and referenced as a physical object. But in office environments where the operator is already seated at a computer… video tutorials are a practical format. 

Videos have become a highly preferred medium for workers to consume how-to content, generally. Research found that 83% of people prefer to learn instructional or informational content by video over text or audio only. 

Not only are video tutorials well-liked, but they can visually show a process in its entirety, leaving less room for confusion or language barriers. We recommend Snagit to convert a series of screenshots into a video how-to and Camtasia for powerful, flexible training video creation. 

Step 6: Draft the SOP for review

Flesh out the outline to become a rough text draft, plus visuals for your standard operating procedure document. Aim for clear, simple, direct language, free of jargon. Use the active voice (e.g., open the window) rather than the passive voice (e.g., the window should be opened).

If creating a video, first develop a simple storyboard that contains three columns:

1. A script of the narration that the viewer will hear spoken
2. Static screenshots or photos that represent the visuals the viewer will see in each scene (again, Snagit is great for collecting these placeholder images)
3. A short description of the on-screen action the viewer will see unfold in each scene

Get input on this draft or storyboard from your key stakeholders, both management and SMEs. Be specific in your feedback request: what feedback you do/don’t need at this stage, where to leave it, and by what date. 

Ideally, have all stakeholders review the same draft in a shared location where they can see and respond to one another’s comments and hopefully resolve conflicting feedback (so you don’t get stuck trying to resolve it all on your own). Once you feel confident that the draft is at least 90% gelled, produce your deliverable.

Step 7: Test the SOP and iterate

This is where it’s tempting to breathe a big sigh of relief and mark the project as done. But, like anything, it’s very unlikely the first version is the best. Plus, the procedure is likely to change over time!

So, put some mechanisms in place to evaluate the effectiveness of your SOP and gather additional information that will help you refine and update it. Regular audits help to identify areas where corrective action may be needed, ensuring ongoing compliance with SOPs.

That could mean setting a future checkpoint with the manager and team leads who use the SOP, including a URL or QR code to funnel feedback your way, or even making the SOP editable by the team using it.

SOP documentation best practices

If you are already familiar with the process you’re documenting, it can be very tempting to dive right in and start writing the SOP. But it really is better to pause and think about the best place to start and how to follow an efficient, scalable process that gives you the most bang for the buck.

If your organization has a practice of documenting SOPs, then start by auditing what you already have. Ask team members to share with you the SOPs they currently reference or send to a new hire or contractor. Review and update those documents as needed. Treat them as a foundation to build on so that new SOPs are consistent with the existing set already in use. 

If you are starting from scratch, there are two main methods for deciding where to start: strategic and opportunistic.

Strategic method

Within a functional area, catalog tasks by frequency, difficulty, and criticality (level of risk if not executed properly). 

If the people responsible for those tasks are mostly seasoned team members with low expected turnover, don’t start with the easy, frequent tasks. Team members should already have a handle on those! Instead, focus your SOP documentation efforts on any intermittent, relatively difficult, and high-stakes tasks they perform. Those tasks will most likely be a challenge every time they come up, and your SOPs can provide much value in ensuring consistent and accurate execution.

If, on the other hand, a functional area has a lot of turnover or outsourcing, it may be very much worth your time and effort to document even simple, everyday tasks to greatly speed up the onboarding of new full-time or contracted hires who need to start with the basics.

Opportunistic method

In many organizations, documenting SOPs is nobody’s job. In this case, “pave the cowpaths” may be the most practical approach. 

As you field the next “how do I” question, onboard the next team member, put out the next fire, or roll out the next technology, allow those urgent demands to set the priority for your SOP documentation efforts. Reframe each incoming “request,” and instead of adopting a 1:1/disposable mindset, adopt a 1:many/evergreen mindset. Write SOPs not only for the one case in front of you but for that case and the next. 

Make this method scalable by enlisting team members to take the same approach. To do this well, you’ll need easily accessible creation tools, SOP templates, established distribution methods, and buy-in from management. It takes a little more time per request to upcycle a one-off response into a persistent SOP, but those small investments pay off in the long run.

SOP templates: A time-saving tool

Benefits of SOP templates

Standard operating procedure templates reduce the time to generate documentation. Saving labor costs over time. Templates also ensure consistency in the presentation, format, and location of documents, which makes them easier to find and follow.

Where to find SOP templates

You can find dozens of free and premium SOP templates on the Snagit Asset service. These visual-first templates can be downloaded directly into Snagit and populated with screenshots, photos, and text titles and captions. Templates offer a number of content layouts built on information design best practices. They also include key metadata such as author and last revised date. 

Some industries have adopted standard templates for SOPs (would that make them SSOPs?) that you can start with and customize as needed. It’s also worth creating read-only template files for Microsoft Word or Google Docs that can be duplicated and edited by team members to keep the format consistent.

How to customize a template

Tailor the template to reflect your company’s branding: logo, font, and any design elements. Beyond that, consider which specific elements to customize, such as departments, roles, and responsibilities, and document naming conventions. And, of course, the step-by-step instructions will be specific to your team and organization.

Implementing and reviewing your SOPs

Remember the visual image of a binder gathering dust on a shelf? Nobody wants that, especially after all the time you’ve invested to get this far. To ensure your SOPs generate value and remain dust-free, be sure to factor in time to launch new SOPs with intentionality and drive initial adoption before moving on to the next project. 

Step 1: Share the SOP with your team

Create basic awareness that the new SOP exists, where to find it, and when and how to use it. Don’t assume that one communication about this is enough. You’ll need to reinforce the message by repeating it and enlisting managers and/or leads within the team to direct attention to the new docs.

Step 2: Train employees

Use existing team meetings or a dedicated session to walk team members through using the SOP. Start at square one: when [trigger event], pull up the SOP from [location], and follow [the steps].

It may be more efficient to do this training asynchronously, via a video created with Camtasia that covers everything you’d cover in a meeting but can be viewed and re-viewed on demand. 

Step 3: Review and update the SOP on cadence

Business processes, roles, and platforms evolve…and so should your SOPs. At least once a quarter, set aside time to review and update SOP documentation with any needed changes or iterations. Ask managers and individual contributors to flag SOPs that need a revision or rewrite. 

Tip: Snagit is super helpful for grabbing new screenshots or screen recordings when a procedure changes.

How to ensure SOPs are followed consistently

Assign accountability

As part of the handoff, identify a designated owner for each SOP who is responsible for ensuring that it is followed and updated as needed. Ideally, list the name of that person on the document to avoid confusion later. 

Monitor and measure

Track performance metrics to ensure that the SOP is achieving its goals. Depending on your organization’s approach to operations, this could be quantitative metrics like quality assurance measures or task completion rates, or it could be qualitative inputs such as feedback from managers, team leads, and individual contributors.

Act on feedback

Neglecting to update SOPs ensures their slide into irrelevance and disuse. When team members sense that nobody cares enough to update the SOP, they stop referencing it. 

When an SOP owner acknowledges and responds to feedback (even if the feedback doesn’t result in a change to the SOP, which happens sometimes), it sends a strong signal to teams that the SOP still matters.

FAQs about standard operating procedures (SOPs)

What’s the difference between an SOP and other business process documentation?

An SOP provides specific, actionable step-by-step instructions for completing a task, while other business documentation may focus on broader processes or policies.

How often should SOPs be updated?

Review and update your SOPs at least yearly—but quarterly is a better goal, especially if your business frequently changes processes, personnel, or tools.

How can I make SOPs more engaging and easy to follow?

Include visuals and videos! Tools like Snagit and Camtasia make it easy to create detailed instructions with supporting visuals like screenshots and video tutorials that improve understanding and engagement.

Conclusion: The importance of a well-written SOP

A well-crafted Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) ensures team members can complete tasks efficiently, maintain quality standards, and deliver consistent results. By documenting processes clearly with visuals, you’ll create SOPs that are easy to follow and maintain.