Many organization struggle with their processes. A big part of the problem is lack of business process documentation, sometimes also reffered as Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). Process documenation show people’s responsibilities and how their work fits into everyone else’s. It outlines the steps necessary to complete a task or process. If you don’t define your processes, you don’t know what people are doing. And how can you improve a process without defining it as it stands now?
Some benefit of having documented process:
- Preparing organisation for any requirement for compliance to process standardisation, such as ISO 9001.
- Onboarding new employees. Having a set of documented processes for new employees to follow can shorten training time, put less strain on other staff members, and help to ensure consistency and continuity of output.
- Communicating processes to others. At times it is necessary to be able to show a process to others.
- Internal audits. Make sure work is done in line with the company’s standards and policies.
- Process improvement and re-engineering. Once a process is documented and understood, it can be analyzed to improve efficiency.