My
household administration is managed by my mother. Not because she is a
dominating helicopter parent but a conscious choice by me and my husband so
that we can pursue our professional goals. But there are times when she goes
out of town to visit my brother or a trip to check her own house. I usually
dread these times because I need to figure out fast quite a few things. When
does the “dhobi” come and how do we keep track of the clothes, do we take milk
everyday or alternate days or what is the plan, where all the pulses are kept
and rice . . . the list is endless and for me seems more complex than a
quadratic equation. Last time fed up with my antics, my mother wrote specific
details in a notebook and handed it to me the night before she was supposed to
travel. There were separate pages for each and every task.
In any office
or factory, there are often situations when the regular person in-charge might
be on leave or has fallen sick. An employee might have decided to quit suddenly
or a more dire situation when an employee is asked to quit immediately. How do
we ensure that the work does not get stuck and things keep on moving? How can
we train a new employee to perform routine tasks in her/ his area of work? How
can we remove dependencies and reduce failures?
There
are two types of activities in our lives (personal and professional) – repetitive
and non-repetitive. The non-repetitive ones often require specific skills,
inputs and processes which might be unique but the repetitive ones can be
completed by anybody with a detailed instruction sheet. The simple answer to create a person
independent work environment is to write Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
But first you need to identify the bucket list of repetitive tasks in your
organization.
What are SOPs?
SOPs
are step-wise written instructions of routine/ repetitive tasks to avoid
miscommunication and to make tasks process driven rather than person specific. SOPs
inherently help save a lot of time during crunch situations.
Receiving
and processing a purchase order, issuing cheques for payment, entering bills in
the accounting system, preparing and issuing job cards for production, testing
for quality control and assurance, receiving raw material at stores, machine
maintenance procedures, dispatching finished goods to customers are some of the
repetitive tasks that can be documented in an SOP. The critical factor here is
the SOPs should be specific tasks and cover only a limited area of concern or
task in a larger function.
The
prime benefit is consistency of information to derive similar quality of output
and error proofing the results.
Who all can write SOPs?
The
most competent people to write SOPs would be people actually performing those
tasks. The documents should then be reviewed by Supervisors, Department Heads
for accuracy and validity. There has to be a defined hierarchy of authors,
reviewers and approvers of SOPs.
How to write an SOP?
There
are few simple pointers on writing your SOP.
- Create an SOP Template file. Choose uniform fonts, font sizes, paper size, layout and version control method. Setup specific numbering system to identify the SOPs.
- Prepare a master list of repetitive tasks function – wise for which SOPs
are prepared. The tabulated sheet should include the name of the Author,
Reviewer, Approver, Document Title, Version, Version Date, Change Note and
Review periodicity.
- Every SOP should have
title, contents, purpose, applicable to which area, who will be using it,
definitions, procedures, steps, reference document or person list, checklists
and formats and handling and safety instructions wherever applicable. It should
highlight the revisions and the distribution list. Finally, an SOP should
inform whom to Contact for deviation or changes.
- Write the SOP step-wise. No SOP should be more than 6 – 9 steps or else break it into 2 different SOPs. On an average people cannot follow a long list of steps to complete one task without losing focus.
- Use simple sentences, bullet points, even a flowchart, diagram or photograph to explain the point.
- Test the SOP with people who are totally unrelated to the task. And continue to improve it till it is generating the desired outcome.
- Train people on how to use the SOP and display it in a non-editable form in the work area.
- Review and version control of SOPs is vital. Setup a review calendar for all SOPs and conduct reviews timely.
All
management systems like ISO, HACCP, Six Sigma, 5S, OHSAS, Sarbannes Oxley,
GAAP, GMP (name it) etc. use SOPs as their fundamental building block. There is
no Euclidean concept of writing an SOP. Whatever works for your company and
people is fine. The outcome and consistency is important not the language and
aesthetics of the SOP.
Many of us must have read about the recent
accident in Tata Memorial Hospital in Navi Mumbai when two employees were stuck
to the MRI machine as one of them entered the room with an oxygen cylinder.
There were warning signs posted at the entrance and such incidents are clearly
avoidable with a little bit of effort. How did they end up going into that room
with the cylinder in the first place? It is most likely that the people
conducting the tasks were not trained to look for the SOP and follow it.
However, writing an SOP is not the end in itself. The
strength of an SOP is the depth of training
imparted to the user of SOP to follow it to the last dot or bear the
consequences.
