I am a corporate banking professional with 25 years of corporate experience in creating SOPs, processes, procedures, policies and training manuals for businesses and organizations for everything from bakeries to fire departments to banks.

I own a freelance consulting company Tempest Risk Management specializing in policies, procedures and business continuity planning.

The Value of Standard Operating Procedures in your Business

A Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is used to capture and store a business workflow in writing and/or pictures and diagrams. Each SOP represents a separate function within the business.

An Operations Manual is a collection of all of the companies SOP's organized and stored in one place. Some companies keep their SOP's in 3 ring binders, others on expensive and confusing intranets but many are choosing to store their SOP's on virtual, cloud based extranets such as Sharepoint, Google Drive or Tempest Gateway where every employee can easily find and use every SOP, anytime, anywhere on any computer or their phones.

How it works

There are many different approaches but the most common format is a simple step by step list of how to perform a particular function. Visual process flows are also common side by side with the written process to re-enforce the workflow as well as help both visual and reading-based learning. I can offer more options and guidance on ways to structure SOP's. In order for our experts to document your processes, we need you to explain them.

This generally happens in one of three ways:

1. You send us what you already have written
2. You describe your process to us over the phone or Zoom
3. You record yourself describing the process to us via Loom or similar screen recording application

From there, we will write your standard operating procedures using professional and attractive templates that we have developed and customized with your logo and company name until you are successful.