How to Document Business Processes

This article will discuss the basics for how to document a business process using the standard operating procedure (SOP) method.

How to Document Business Processes Using Standard Operating Procedures

When asked how to automate your business, we recommend starting with clear a clear documentation of your business process. Having clear documented steps of your process will make the automation process go faster.

Wikipedia defines Standard Operating Procedures as…a set of step-by-step instructions compiled by an organization to help workers carry out routine operations. Standard operating procedures aim to achieve efficiency, quality output and uniformity of performance.

Standard Operating Procedures Create:

• A Framework for a Consistent Customer Experience
• An Ability for New Team Members to Self-Train
• An Ability to Cross-Train Team Members to Mitigate an Employee Absence
  (i.e. Employee Paid Time Off, Sickness, Resignation)
• A Culture Where Expectations are Clear for Each Member of Your Sales Team
• A Standard for Accountability and Performance Reviews for Your Team
• A Means for Bringing Efficiency to Your Sales Process
• A Standard for All Sales and Delivery Processes
• A Road map for Incorporating Automation into Your Business Processes

How to Document Business Processes Like a Pro

Here is Weblytica's 7-Step SOP Development Process

1) The Unraveling

In order to understand the standard operating procedure for your business process, you must first do an initial process of discovery. This process involves “unraveling” your sales process to identify individual tasks to document.

2) Task Clustering

The task clustering phase builds upon the unraveling phase. This step identifies groups of individuals who are directly involved or impacted by each of the tasks involved in the business process. Clusters are created for each task, and include  the following individuals:

1. “Task Masters” - Individuals who “own” the completion of the macro tasks, and whom have the greatest understanding of when, why, where and how the task is completed and who has the most to gain when the task has completed successfully.
2. “Decision Makers” - Individuals who manage or oversee the “Task Masters”, and
3. “Stakeholders” - Individuals who are impacted by how the task is completed. This often includes Business Ownership or other departments such as Finance, Legal or Human Resources.

3) The Deep Dive

The Deep Dive phase involves creating a screen recording of each of the multi-step macro tasks. These recorded are important, because they provide an over-the-shoulder look at how the task master completes the multi-step tasks in real time. Decision makers and stakeholders should be present to add additional information and context throughout the deep dive screen recording sessions.

4) SOP Development

With the data collection step complete, the SOP document can be created by breaking down each of the tasks into granular steps to create a step-by-step document.

Time to Automate!

Now that your business process SOP is complete, it's time to consider how to automate your step-by-step business process to save time, resources and energy so you can focus on nurturing relationships with your customers.

Looking for help? Let Weblytica, LLC help you learn how to document business processes by engaging us in our SOP development services.