An SOP somebody actually follows
The friction in a procedure is almost never that people won't read it. It is that they can't tell which document applies, whether they're allowed to start, or whether they're finished. Those are three structural faults and all three are fixable. Below: how a library of procedures is arranged so the right one is findable, one complete SOP built the way I build them, and how I decide whether a step needs a sentence, a picture, or a video. Invented client, invented team, roles instead of names.
A page is one kind of thing. Most bad SOPs are three kinds at once.
The single most common fault I inherit is a document trying to onboard somebody new and be a fast reference for somebody who has done it forty times. It serves neither. Someone learning needs a single path with nothing unexpected. Someone working needs to jump straight to step four and find the threshold without reading. Split them, and most of the friction disappears before anyone writes a word.
Three kinds of page, and what each one is for
| Kind | The reader is | What it looks like | What it must never do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orientation explains |
New, or deciding whether this even applies to them | One screen. What this program is, who touches it, and links to every procedure underneath it. | Contain steps. The moment it does, it becomes one role's SOP and stops being shared. |
| Procedure how to |
At work, mid-task, probably slightly behind | Numbered steps, one role per section, seven steps maximum, ending in a stated result. | Teach. Assume competence and link out to the explanation for anyone who needs it. |
| Reference looks up |
Checking one fact and leaving | A table. Thresholds, field values, turnaround times, who owns what. | Live inside step seven of a procedure where nobody will find it again. |
How the library is arranged
One folder per program. An orientation page at the top that holds only what is shared, and a procedure page per role underneath it. A separate reference section that every procedure links into rather than restates.
The shape matters more than it looks. Because eligibility and turnaround live on the orientation page, changing a turnaround time is one edit. Because each role has its own page, a contractor sees their procedure and not four other people's.
The rule the whole library depends on
One page owns each fact. Everything else links to it. A fact that appears on two pages is not documented twice, it is documented zero times, because the moment one copy changes the other becomes a lie that still looks authoritative. Nothing catches it. There is no cross-page diff, no "what links here", no alert.
What restating costs
A submission deadline changed by email. The role page that had helpfully repeated the date kept the old one for five days, and people worked to it, because a stale copy reads exactly like a current one.
What a pointer costs
The same page carries one line: Turnaround times are on the program overview. If that ever breaks, it breaks visibly. A stale pointer looks like a pointer. A stale copy looks authoritative.
The test I run before adding anything to a page: does this fact change for more than one role at a time, can somebody other than this page's owner change it, and would I have to write this same sentence on a second page? Any yes and it belongs somewhere else, with a link at the exact step where the reader needs it rather than dumped at the bottom.
What keeps it from rotting
Documentation does not go stale because people are careless. It goes stale because nobody owns it. Every page carries a named role and a review date on its face, not in a footer, and the review is a calendared job rather than an intention. When the work drifts from the document, the document is wrong, and the fix is a change log entry rather than a quiet edit.
And the honest part: I do not write most of these from a blank page. When a system changes, I document the change and that document becomes the SOP. When a system already exists and has never been written down, I sit with the person who does it and watch them do it, because what people describe and what people do are different documents. The gaps I find in that hour get named out loud, not filed quietly. That is usually the most valuable thing in the engagement, and it is never the thing anybody asked for.
One procedure, built the way I build them.
Invented client, invented team. Every convention here is one I actually hold to: sentence case, imperative steps, one action per step, seven steps maximum per role, location before action, the finishing action inside the same step, and a stated result so you know you're done. The two checklists do different jobs and the difference is deliberate.
Run a standalone manuscript review
Overview
A standalone review is a one-off manuscript assessment bought outside any program. It runs from payment to delivered notes, usually across three weeks. Eligibility, word count caps and turnaround times live on the program overview and are not repeated here.
Roles
- Coordinator. Owns the client relationship end to end. Every message to the client comes from here.
- Operations manager. Owns this page, the reviewer assignment, and anything commercial.
- Reviewer. External. Reads the manuscript and writes the notes. Contacted by email only.
Before you start
Every box has to be ticked before step one. If one of them isn't, you are not blocked, you have found the actual task. Go and get it.
- In the client record, set Stage to Review booked. Everything downstream keys off this one field, so nothing else needs setting by hand.
- Create the manuscript folder from the folder template and paste the link into the client record.
- Send the intake form and give a returned-by date three working days out.
- If the form is returned incomplete, ask once for the missing fields and hold the clock.
- If nothing arrives by the date, tell the operations manager rather than chasing a third time.
- Confirm the word count against the cap on the program overview, and record it in the client record.
- Assign a reviewer from the reviewer roster and email them the folder link and the due date.
- Set Stage to With reviewer. The clock starts here, not at payment.
- Note anything commercial in the client record. If the manuscript is over the cap, quote the overage before the reviewer starts, never after.
- Read the manuscript and write the notes into the template in the shared folder.
- Reply to the assignment email when the notes are in the folder. Don't attach the file.
- Review the notes for tone and completeness before the client sees them.
- Send the notes and set Stage to Delivered.
Before you close it
Work through the job first, then pause here. This isn't a recipe, it's the check that catches the one thing that gets forgotten under time pressure.
Done looks like
Stage reads Delivered, the notes are in the folder and in the client's inbox, and any overage is invoiced. If all three are true the job is closed. If one isn't, it isn't.
Questions that come up
The manuscript is over the cap and the client says they were told it was fine. Send it to the operations manager. Don't absorb it and don't argue it, because the answer is commercial and it isn't yours to give.
The reviewer misses the due date. Tell the operations manager the same day. The client hears about a slipped date from us before they notice it themselves, always.
The client asks a question mid-review. Answer it if it's about process. Route it if it's about the writing, because the reviewer is mid-read and interrupting them costs more than the answer is worth.
Open items
Whether a second pass is included when the client substantially rewrites after notes is still undecided. Currently handled case by case, which means inconsistently. Flagged 12 August.
Change log
12 Aug · Moved the word count check ahead of reviewer assignment after an overage was quoted late. Operations manager.
28 Jul · Split the reviewer steps onto their own page. Contractors were reading three roles' procedures to find two steps. Operations manager.
9 Jul · Created from shadowing two live reviews. Operations manager.
Text by default. Everything else has to earn its maintenance cost.
Every picture in a procedure is a small debt, payable the next time the interface changes. That does not make pictures wrong, it makes them a decision. The order below is cheapest first, and I move down it only when the step above genuinely cannot carry the information.
What the evidence actually says
Screenshots help, but not for free. Manuals with screenshots outperform text-only on task completion, and readers spend longer in the document to get there. Worth it when the picture answers a question text can't, which is usually "where is it", not "what is it".
Video wins decisively for one narrow thing. Across a large body of comparisons, animation beats static images modestly overall, but for procedural and motor learning the effect is large. Showing somebody a sequence of movements is what video is genuinely for.
And loses for the opposite reason. Video can't be paused inside working memory. A long unsegmented recording underperforms plain text for a complex procedure, because the reader can't hold step three while watching step seven. If it must be video, it must be short and it must be chaptered.
How a video SOP actually gets made
I build these in Camtasia, or in Loom when a client already has it and no budget for anything else. The tool matters far less than the discipline. Loom is faster to record and almost impossible to edit, so it suits a one-off explanation. Camtasia is slower and worth it whenever the recording will be watched more than a handful of times, because the callouts and zooms are what make a screen recording followable rather than merely watchable.
The most complex set I have built this way ran to a full library of recorded procedures for a physically involved operation, where reading the step and doing the step are not the same skill. That is the case where video is not a nice-to-have.
The rule I hold to
Never record a video of a process that is about to change, and never record one to compensate for a step that is unclear in writing. A confusing step recorded on video is a confusing step that now costs forty minutes to correct. Fix the sentence first. If the sentence cannot be fixed, that is usually a sign the process itself is the problem, and the best procedure is still the one nobody needs.