SOPs: A Project Leader’s Best Friend
How to create freedom, reduce errors, and scale your projects with standard operating procedures.
👋 Hey, Kyle here! Welcome to The Influential Project Manager, a weekly newsletter covering the essentials of successful project leadership.
Today’s Overview:
Construction managers and project leaders rely on Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to achieve the quality and efficiency of their projects.
An SOP is a clearly documented, understood, and agreed-upon way of carrying out a task within a process. It’s like having someone guide you step-by-step.
SOPs are the key to delegating tasks and ensuring others can handle them. They allow you to grow without burning out. When you create great SOPs today, you unlock more time for yourself tomorrow. Here’s how to navigate the process and succeed.
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SOPs: A Project Leader’s Best Friend
Filed under: Productivity, Project Management
We live in a time where the need to grow and accomplish more has created anxiety, stress, and overwhelm.
I hear more and more people talking about struggling with time management and getting things done.
Here’s the truth: High performers have systems and habits that help them increase productivity and maximize their time.
Today, I want to empower you with tools to multiply time and increase productivity, so you don't feel buried under stress and frustration.
My partner, Roger, and I have studied top project managers and discovered how they multiply their time and impact.
The Three Eras of Productivity
A new type of thinker has emerged: the multiplier. Unlike most people who try to manage time, multipliers understand that there's no such thing as time management—only self-management.
To grasp this concept, let's explore the history of time management theory.
Era 1 - Urgency: “How soon does this matter?” Here, the focus is on efficiency. While being efficient is good, relying on it alone has diminishing returns.
Era 2 - Importance: "How much does this matter?" This era prioritizes tasks based on importance, which is powerful but can still lead to overwhelm.
Era 3 - Significance: "How long does this matter?" This era focuses on the long-term impact of activities. Instead of asking, “What’s the most important thing I can do today?” high performers ask, "What can I do today that creates more time tomorrow?" This mindset shift is key to multiplying time.
How SOPs will Multiply Your Time
You've been running your projects for a while, and you’re busy. But it feels like you're spending time on the wrong things—chasing down project updates, double-checking invoices, helping your team. You're exhausted.
Despite your efforts, your team still relies on you for answers, or worse, they do things their own way.
You need Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
PMI lists top reasons for project failure, including poor alignment, lack of executive support, and unclear expectations. Standard processes can help project managers address these issues.
SOPs are the only way to get tasks off your plate and ensure others can handle them. They allow you to grow without burning out.
When you invest in creating great SOPs today, you unlock more time for yourself tomorrow.
Your SOPs set the bar for quality
Now, I hear you thinking…
"Wait, aren't you the guy who tells me to build a team, explain the why and what, and let them figure out the how? And now you're telling me to write procedures?"
I get it. Hear me out.
SOPs create freedom. They don’t take it away.
You don’t create an SOP for complex problems or creative work. Instead, you standardize anything that occurs three times or more.
If something happens more than three times, stop wasting your time. Streamline it.
This frees up mental capacity for the stuff that matters and ensures consistent quality.
But my project is special!
Every project is unique, but many tasks are repetitive. Think about these regular activities:
Time reporting
Travel expenses
Procuring material
Sending follow up emails
On-boarding a contractor
Producing a regular report
Submitting a change order
Distributing new documents
Setting up a project in your system
I bet anyone on your team does these regularly. The first thing they do is search their “sent items” for how they did it last time. They’re using an SOP already—just a personal one that's probably outdated.
Time for an update!
Let’s get on the same page
SOPs often get confused with processes, systems, or policies. Here are my quick definitions:
Policy: A guiding principle describing "how we do things here." Set at the company level, they cover norms like wining and dining clients or business travel.
System: A multi-step process involving multiple stakeholders and data sources, taking something from A to Z. Example: billing a client.
Process: A subset of a system, done by a single person at a single time. Example: sending a newsletter.
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP): A clearly documented, understood, and agreed-upon way of carrying out a task within a process. This is like having someone guiding you step-by-step. Example: logging your travel expenses.
But there are a few key elements in this definition that are worth digging into:
Documented: Get your processes out of everyone’s heads and into a centralized place—paper, flow chart, construction software, or even an iPhone video.
Understood: Write the process in a way that’s easy to understand.
Agreed upon: The process can’t be made up, or only one person’s idea of how something should be done. It has to be the method everyone’s aligned with.
SOPs are an opportunity for everyone
Before your team dismisses the idea, understand that SOPs benefit everyone.
Let’s take three quick examples from someone on your team.
Entry Level Hires: An entry level hire will be happy with any kind of guidance. They see how someone with more experience would do something, and they don’t have to disturb anyone to get the job done.
Senior People: They’ll be happy you take away some cognitive load, and that they don’t have to answer the same question every day.
Go-Getters: That leaves us with the go-getters on your team. They’ll want to shine, and letting them create SOPs is the opportunity. It forces them to think through why they do a task a certain way, see the big picture, and take ownership.
You’ve helped your team in different ways with the same document while increasing quality and efficiency. Everyone wins.
What Makes a Good SOP
A good SOP answers key questions.
Why do this?
Who does this?
What steps are taken?
When is this performed?
How do you do it in detail?
How does it fit in the big picture?
It sets clear expectations, provides all necessary information, and guides the reader from A to Z.
Elements of a good SOP:
Title: A clear description of the task.
Purpose: Explains why the task is done and its importance.
Scope: Shows the beginning and end of the task, with visuals if needed.
Timing: Indicates when the task is done and its duration.
Responsibilities: Identifies who performs the task.
Risks & Pitfalls: Highlights common mistakes or risks.
References: Points to necessary documents or applications, including login instructions.
Escalation & Questions: Directs where to go for help.
Owner & Approver: Shows who maintains and approves the SOP.
Version History & Update Cadence: Tracks changes and sets revision schedules.
Success Definition & Example: Links to a successful task example using the SOP.
Steps to Complete: Detailed, step-by-step instructions that can be checked off during execution.
By creating and following solid SOPs, you ensure consistent quality and free up time for more significant work.
How to turn a good SOP into a great SOP
One word: visuals.
Show, don’t tell. Use screenshots, diagrams, or my personal favorite: a quick video.
I use Loom for this. After you’ve made the SOP, record a quick video of you performing the task exactly like you describe in the SOP.
Loom lets people see, hear, and follow along like you’re sitting next to them and showing them exactly what to do.
I’ve found that 90% of people will just watch the Loom and use the written SOP as a reference afterward. It’s a fantastic use of everyone’s time.
One great feature of Roger is that you can embed a video, like a Loom, directly in their template builder. This allows your team to access an SOP right from the workflow without switching contexts or opening a new tab. Making an SOP accessible is half the battle, and Roger solves this problem perfectly.
Final Takeaways
As a project manager, your job is to make the implicit explicit.
A clear SOP is the perfect example of that. Help your team to do something efficiently and correctly without micromanagement. Simplify without dumbing it down.
If this seems like a lot of work, remember two things:
SOPs multiply your time: They carry over from project to project. It’s an investment you’ll make once, and the savings & standards you create will carry you for years.
SOPs reduce questions: Most of the information will only be referred to if needed, saving you from answering repetitive questions. That’s leverage!
⏱️💰 Start Saving Time and Money
Templates are helpful, but nothing beats project management software.
Empower your team with the right tools to plan and execute projects.
Roger allows you to integrate your SOPs into the systems your managers use daily (like email) to achieve business excellence. Start a pilot project and prepare to be amazed!
Get 25% off your pilot with the code IPMPILOT.
Until next week,
Kyle Nitchen
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Another excellent post, Kyle. I really resonate with this statement: "SOPs create freedom. They don’t take it away." Reminds me of the saying "Discipline is freedom."