You shouldn’t have to be the answer to every question

If somebody has to come find you to know how a thing gets done, then that thing only lives in your head. It works fine while you’re standing there. It stops working the day you’re out, the day you bring somebody new on, or the day the person who has been doing it for six years gives notice.

A standard operating procedure is a written answer to “how we do things here.” You write it once, and after that the answer doesn’t have to come out of your head every time somebody asks. This is the template I use, with a prompt under each field so you know what belongs there, and three finished examples so you can see what one looks like when it’s done.

Don’t sit down to write ten of these. Write the one for whatever repeat work you happen to be doing today, and let the set build over a year.

What’s inside

Where to start, and the jobs that cause the most trouble when they only live in somebody’s head
The nine-part template, with a prompt under every field
The fastest way to write one, using a screen recording instead of a blank page
What not to write a procedure for
The two lines at the top of every procedure that say when to start it and when it’s finished
Example: Filling a cancelled appointment, worked start to finish
Example: Verifying insurance before a new patient’s first visit
Example: Requesting an authorization, and tracking it until there’s an answer

Where should I send it?

Questions, or want to talk any of it through? ron@rontester.com