I’ve been sick for the last 5 days thus I haven’t been able to make it to the office this week. This reminds me to ask you: How well documented are your processes and procedures?
In the past few months, we’ve been working on making sure that every process and procedure is identified and its corresponding Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is created or updated.
Make sure that your SOPs are up to date and that there is at least an identified, trained backup for each function.
In IT organizations is very common to have a staff member or two that can do everything, and everything they do is stored in their heads. This increases risk for the organization. Make sure that your SOPs are up to date and that there is at least an identified, trained backup for each function. This includes the functions of the CIO and IT Directors.
So, are your SOPs up to date, indexed, and located in a place where they can be found by the backup personnel when needed?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Andres,
Sounds as if your company is in pretty good shape. Too often SOPs are written once, put on a shelf and forgotten until they are needed at which point it’s discovered that they are months (years?) out of date.
Alec
Alec,
Yes, you are correct. I know we are not there yet, but we are working to reach that state where all the documents are up to date.
The first step is to identify the need to have SOPs.
Second is to have the Subject Matter Expert (SME) responsible for the function to write the documentation.
And third, and probably most difficult of all of the steps, is to create the habit for the staff to keep them up to date. I’ll probably blog about this in the near future.
Thanks,
Andres
Hey Andres, I’m not in IT but I do agree with documenting proceedures and keeping them updated. Unfortunately I get lazy and let this lapse quite often. Maybe I need to set aside 2-3 hours a week to work on this. Thanks for posting this up.
Greg,
Thanks for your comment.
You are correct. The struggle to complete or update the SOPs usually comes from the feeling that they are not worth the time you put into them. There is always something more important to accomplish, right? But then, the cost is too high when there is a real need like training a new employee or to recover from a system failure and we find the documentation is outdated or simply not there.
I think it is important to work on them periodically, to create a good habit that allows you to complete this important step.