Write Down the SOPs: Administration

Steven Cesare, Ph.D.

This document is the follow-up to the previous week’s publication that focused on field operations SOPs. As you may recall from last week, this topic was initiated by a telephone call from an impressive Florida business owner who wanted to discuss the future of his company. While temporarily content with revenue, competitor analysis, and organizational culture issues, the business owner sought guidance on the vital focal points necessary to improve efficiency, gross margin, and productivity in the hope of developing operational and administrative “best practices.”

To reiterate last week’s comment, I admonished the business owner that such a venture would meet with internal resistance from his management team in that SOPs are notoriously tedious, ostensibly bureaucratic, and conveniently overlooked when needed most. It would be incumbent upon him, and him alone, to drive the unyielding level of accountability necessary to drive these SOPs into the organization’s ongoing work routines.

This document provides the list of common administrative processes that typically warrant immediate, significant, and sustained attention, lest they go unmonitored eventuating in bottlenecks, increased overhead costs, and poor quality.

Here is the list of administrative procedures I offered to him: