How to Write a Standard Operating Procedure: A Step-by-Step Guide

Eleven pages, signed by a director, untouched for two years: that is the expense-claims procedure in a typical office, invented here for illustration. It sits in a shared folder. New starters learn the job by asking whoever has been there longest, and each of them learns a slightly different version.

It was written for an audit, not for the person doing the work, and that difference decides how to write a standard operating procedure that gets used: with the people who do the task, from the task as it runs, in short numbered steps, tested on someone new before anyone signs it. The US Environmental Protection Agency’s 2007 guidance on SOPs warns that even the best-written procedure fails if people do not follow it, and advises having someone other than the writer test each draft.¹ The seven steps:

1. Decide whether the task needs an SOP
2. Write it with the people who do the work
3. Walk through the task as it is done
4. Pick a format that fits the task and the reader
5. Write one action per step, in plain words
6. Test the draft on someone who has not done the task
7. Put it where the work happens, and name who keeps it current

Prefer to watch? The video covers the same ground as this article.

VideoHow to Write a Standard Operating Procedure People Will UseWiserHours

What a standard operating procedure is for

A standard operating procedure (SOP) is a set of written instructions for a routine or repetitive activity, in the words of the US EPA’s 2007 guidance, and its purpose is consistency: the same task done the same way whoever is on duty, even as staff come and go. The guidance adds that SOPs support training, reduce miscommunication and show later how the work was done.¹

Without one, each person fills the gaps with their own habits: in the expense-claims case, two offices approve the same taxi receipt differently. The payoff grows with repetition, which is why SOPs sit inside process improvement, the discipline of fixing recurring work. The EPA ties the level of detail to how critical the process is, how often it runs, how many people use the SOP and whether training is routinely available.¹

Lean manufacturing’s version, standardized work, goes further: it fixes each operator’s work sequence and timing against the pace of customer demand, and treats that as the baseline for improvement.² Before writing anything, name the recurring task, who does it and what goes wrong when it varies.

Procedures that don’t fit the work get worked around

A written procedure can help only if people use it, and people stop using procedures that don’t match the real work. HSG48, guidance from the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE), says that most rule-breaking at work is an attempt to get the job done despite the constraints and is very rarely deliberate sabotage.³

Myth

Once a procedure is written and signed off, people will follow it.

Fact

HSE guidance says that rules seen as impractical, hard to read or out of date get bypassed, often as the normal way of working.

The HSE describes how bypassing becomes routine: people cut corners to save time, decide a rule is too restrictive or no longer applies, and new starters copy the group. Procedures that are hard to read or out of date make that more likely, and time pressure, too few staff or missing equipment push people off them in the moment.³

In an office it looks like this. The expense procedure says to attach the paper receipt, but half the team now pays by phone and gets only an emailed receipt. Nobody changes the procedure, so each person improvises, and soon there are several unofficial versions and one official one that no one follows. A rulebook can be complete and still irrelevant: in a small, undated survey of Dutch railway staff, reported in a 1995 handbook published by the HSE, none of the 50 people asked could remember ever consulting the rules on the job.⁴

The broadest look we found at why people depart from procedures comes from hospitals: a 2013 scoping reviewscoping review: A review that maps what research exists on a broad question, what kinds of studies were done and where the gaps are. It uses a systematic search but usually does not rate or pool the results, so it describes the evidence rather than saying what works.Full entry in the glossary of nurses’ workarounds by Deborah Debono and colleagues.

The study

Limited evidence

Where hospital workarounds start: a 2013 review of 58 nursing studies

The team searched twelve databases for studies of how nurses depart from prescribed procedures. A mismatch between newly introduced technology or policies and the existing workflow was one of the most common causes. Workarounds cut both ways: they let care go ahead despite hindrances in the workflow but could also compromise it, and few studies measured their impact.⁵

For an SOP writer, a workaround is information: it marks where the written procedure and the real work part company. The caveat is scope, because these are hospital studies, mostly descriptive, and they show where workarounds come from rather than how often they cause harm.

Surgical checklists, another kind of written procedure, show that adopting one is not enough on its own: fewer deaths and complications followed a new checklist in a 2009 study of eight hospitals, but no significant drop followed Ontario’s province-wide checklist policy in a 2014 study, which did not report how well teams used the lists, a contrast unpacked in why checklists work only when teams run them.⁶⁷

Further reading

• 

  The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

  by Atul Gawande

  Why short written steps help in complex work and why they must fit the people using them, as with the surgical checklists discussed here.

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The practical answer is to give people a legitimate way to depart from the procedure. In US drug manufacturing, one example from regulated work, Food and Drug Administration rules require written production procedures to be followed and any deviation to be recorded and justified.⁸ Outside regulated work, the same idea fits in one line.

How to write a standard operating procedure in seven steps

The steps follow the US EPA’s 2007 guidance and the UK HSE’s guidance on procedures; the expense-claims examples are ours. They are expert advice rather than tested technique, and the table further down shows how much support each has.

1. An owner and a review date at the top. One named person keeps it current; the EPA suggests reviews every one to two years, for example.
2. Numbered steps that start with a verb. One action per step, in the order it is done, in the active voice, so it is clear who does what.
3. A plain branch. The one real decision is written as "If..., go to step 7", not buried in a paragraph.
4. The warning just before its step. The HSE advises placing a warning right before the step it applies to.
5. A deviation line at the foot. A sanctioned way to note what you did instead and why; each note shows where the next version should change.

1. Decide whether the task needs an SOP

Not every task needs a written procedure. The HSE’s information sheet on procedures offers a quick test: a task that is safety-critical, highly complex, rarely performed or done by inexperienced people calls for step-by-step instructions, while a task that is none of these can be served by a job aid such as a checklist, diagram or flowchart.⁹

1. Is the task safety-critical?
2. Is it highly complex?
3. Is it rarely performed?
4. Is the person doing it inexperienced?

Yes to any: write a full step-by-step procedure.
No to all four: a job aid, such as a checklist, diagram or flowchart, may be enough.

Ask one more question first: could the task be redesigned so the mistake cannot happen? The same HSE sheet says a procedure should be relied on only after reasonable attempts to remove or reduce the hazard, and warns that writing a new procedure after each incident deals with that incident, not its underlying causes.⁹ A required field on a form beats a rule telling people to fill it in, and finding the cause behind an incident comes before writing any new rule.

2. Write it with the people who do the work

The US EPA says SOPs should be written by people who perform the work, and that a team approach for tasks shared by several people also builds buy-in from future users.¹ The HSE goes further: users should always be involved, which means gathering input from as many as possible across teams and shifts, not handing the job to one person.⁹

In the expense-claims case, the person everyone asks writes the first draft and a colleague from each office reviews it. The manager asks questions, protects the time and approves; they do not write alone from memory.

3. Walk through the task as it is done

The HSE recommends basing a procedure on task analysis, such as walking and talking through the task with the people who do it.¹⁰ Its information sheet adds that workers often have quicker informal methods, which belong in the formal procedure if they are safe, and that personal notebooks of tips, which it calls “black books”, show what the official version leaves out.⁹

In practice, sit with the person while they process a real claim and note every step, every decision and every point where they rely on memory or a sticky note.

4. Pick a format that fits the task and the reader

The EPA says there is no single correct format, recommends breaking the work into logical steps and suggests flowcharts to summarize a series of steps.¹ The HSE’s HSG48 matches format to task: steps set out one at a time for work that is complex, rarely done or done in adverse conditions, flowcharts or decision tables for choices, and a quick reference card for familiar, frequent tasks. It also warns that too much detail makes people use a procedure less, while too little leaves a newcomer stuck.³

For the expense claim, a single page of numbered steps is enough, with the one real decision written as a plain branch: “If the receipt is missing, go to step 7.” A fill-in SOP template will get its own guide under process improvement and business efficiency.

5. Write one action per step, in plain words

The HSE’s advice on presenting procedures is concrete: number every step, state who does what and when, use the present tense and active voice, start with a verb, put one action in each step, avoid double negatives, give exact values and place warnings just before the step they apply to.⁹ HSG48 adds that steps should appear in the order they are done: “Do A, then do B” is easier to follow than “Before doing B, do A”.³

US federal plain-language guidance explains why active voice matters in instructions: it makes clear who should do what.¹¹ A step that says receipts “are to be checked” leaves open who checks them; “Check that every receipt is attached” does not. When several roles share a task, a RACI chart of who does what settles the names before you write.

6. Test the draft on someone who has not done the task

The EPA sets a clear standard: an SOP should be detailed enough that someone with limited experience of the task, but a basic understanding, can complete it unsupervised.¹

It is especially helpful if draft SOPs are actually tested by individuals other than the original writer before the SOPs are finalized.

US plain-language guidance describes how: one-to-one paraphrase testing for short documents, and usability testing for longer ones where finding the right information matters. It advises testing at least twice, revising after each round.¹² Every place a tester hesitates, rereads or asks a question is a step to rewrite.

7. Put it where the work happens, and name who keeps it current

The EPA says current copies need to be easy to reach where the work is done, on paper or on screen, or the SOP serves little purpose, and that its use should be reinforced by management, preferably the direct supervisor.¹ HSG48 notes that people are more reluctant to use a procedure that takes too long to find, and that copies kept in two places must not contradict each other.³

A procedure also does not replace skill. The HSE describes procedures and competence as two sides of the same coin, so training should cover the key procedures.¹⁰ Name one owner and a review date on the first page; the EPA suggests periodic reviews, for example every one to two years.¹ For the expense claim, that could mean a link to the one-page procedure beside the submit button in the expense tool, with the owner’s name at the top. Keeping SOPs current over the years gets its own guide.

From blank page to signed SOP

• Name the recurring task, who does it and what goes wrong when it varies
• Check whether a design change could prevent the mistake instead
• Draft it with the people who do the work
• Watch one real case and note every step and decision
• Choose a format: full steps, flowchart or quick card
• Write one action per numbered step, starting with a verb
• Add a line for recording a step that could not be followed
• Test the draft on someone new, twice
• Store it where the work happens, with an owner and a review date

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How much support each step has

SOP-writing advice rests on the experience of quality and safety bodies, not on experiments: we found no study that pits one way of writing procedures against another. What research there is concerns use, and it points one way: people bypass procedures that don’t fit the work, and a procedure adopted by policy may bring no measurable gain.

The steps on involving users and matching the real work have the most support, because the workaround evidence agrees with the guidance. The advice on style and testing is cheap and sensible, but nobody has measured what each part adds. If you have time for only part of the process, spend it on steps 2 and 3: drafting with the people who do the task, from the task as it runs.

The bottom line

Write an SOP for tasks where consistency matters, and write it with the people who do the work, from the work as it runs. Keep each step to one action, test the draft on someone who has never done the task, and store it where the work happens with a named owner. When people work around it, treat that as a note on what the next version should fix.