Operations
AI SOP generator: the prompt, and how to check what it writes
The best AI SOP generator is a prompt, not a product. Copy it, then run the five-step check before your crew follows what it wrote.
The tools near the top of this search will write you a procedure in forty seconds. They'll do it well enough to be dangerous.
Writing was never the hard part. The hard part is different. A procedure says how the work actually gets done. The only person who knows that is the one doing it. A generator can't talk to them.
So here's the prompt, free. Then the part no tool gives you, which is how to tell whether what came out is true.
The prompt
Paste this into any chat tool. Fill in the brackets with what you already know.
You are helping me write a standard operating procedure for a small business.
The job: [what happens, in one sentence]
Who does it: [the role, and whether they are new or experienced]
It starts when: [the trigger]
It is finished when: [the end state, so nobody can argue about done]
What goes wrong: [the two or three failures I have actually seen]
Words we use: [our own names for the tools, parts, forms and systems]
Write it as numbered steps a new person could follow on their second day.
Rules:
- One action per step. If a step contains the word "and", split it.
- Name the form, system or tool used in each step.
- Mark any step needing a judgment call with [JUDGMENT] and say what the
call is.
- Mark any step where a mistake reaches a customer with [CHECK].
- Do not invent part numbers, prices, timings, model numbers or regulations.
Where you need one, write [ASK] instead.
- At the end, list every assumption you made that I did not give you.
That last line is the one that earns its keep. The assumptions list is where the draft tells on itself, and no SOP product I've seen asks for it.
The [ASK] markers are a to-do list and not a defect. Count them before you read anything else. More than five or six and you handed over too little to start with. Zero is the one to worry about, because it means the tool filled a gap and didn't tell you.
- 40 secfor a generator to write you the page
- 20 minfor the check that tells you whether it's true
- 5 minfor the second walk, which is the one everybody skips
What the first draft gets wrong
Four things, every time. Know them in advance and a twenty-minute edit becomes a five-minute one.
| What the draft does | What you need instead | Where to catch it |
|---|---|---|
| Writes for someone who already knows the job | Open the returns form in the system and enter the order number | Any step that's a noun phrase, not an action |
| Smooths over the step everybody gets wrong | The trouble named out loud, in the step | The ASK markers and the assumptions list |
| Uses generic words for your specific things | First-piece check, not quality inspection. The job sheet, not the work order | Every noun on the page |
| Hands back the number of steps you described | An opinion about whether twelve is the right number | Nowhere. That one is yours |
A crew can smell somebody else's words in about four seconds, so row three is worth more time than it looks.
That last one matters more than it looks. You've got a written process for the first time. That's also your first chance to look at it and ask why step four exists.
Do that reading before you fix any wording, because the moment you start editing sentences you stop seeing structure. Count the steps you couldn't explain to a customer. That count is the real output of this part.
The five-step check
Twenty minutes, in this order. Skipping step one is how a procedure ends up on a wall while everyone keeps doing it the old way.
Step one: walk it with the person who does the job
Print it. Stand where the work happens. Read the steps out loud and let them interrupt you.
You're listening for two sentences. "That's not the order" and "that only works if". Write their words down as they say them, not your tidier version.
Step two: run it once with someone who doesn't know the job
The real test. Hand it to the newest person and watch them try, and say nothing while they do.
Every place they stop is a missing step. Every place they ask a question is an [ASK] you didn't fill in.
Step three: fix it in their words, then walk it again
Not your words. Theirs. Then go back to step one, because the fix changed the page.
That loop is the part people skip, and it's cheap. The second walk takes five minutes.
Step four: put a date and two names on it
The date it was written. The person who does the job. The person who answers questions about it.
A procedure with nobody's name on it belongs to nobody. A step with no owner is a suggestion.
Step five: pick the trigger for the next review
Not a calendar date. A trigger. A new supplier, a changed form, a new tool, or the second time somebody tells you the page is wrong.
Write the trigger on the page itself, underneath the two names. A review living in somebody's calendar belongs to that person's calendar. A review living on the page belongs to whoever is holding it.
Figure 1 / Sequence
Five steps in order, and step three sends you back to step one.
The five-step check on a written procedure
Walk it with the person who does the job
Listen for two sentences: "That's not the order" and "that only works if".
Run it once with someone who doesn't know the job
Every place they stop is a missing step. Every question is an [ASK] you didn't fill in.
Fix it in their words, then walk it again
Go back to step one, because the fix changed the page.
Put a date and two names on it
A procedure with no name attached belongs to nobody.
Pick the trigger for the next review
Not a calendar date. A new supplier, a changed form, a new tool, or the second time somebody tells you the page is wrong.
Three examples, start to finish
Illustrations of the method, not work we've done.
A water heater changeout. The trigger is a signed quote and the end state is a photographed install with the old unit on the truck. The [JUDGMENT] step is what to do when the existing shutoff fails, and the [CHECK] step is the written warranty note that reaches the customer. The rest is just the order.
A new patient call at a dental practice. The trigger is the phone ringing and the end state is a booked appointment with the forms sent. The [JUDGMENT] step is which slot to offer when the schedule is thin, and the [CHECK] step is anything written back to the patient. No patient detail goes into any tool while you draft this, for the reasons in what your team can safely put into ChatGPT.
A changeover on a shop floor. The trigger is the last good piece of the previous run and the end state is a signed first-piece check. This is where generic words do the most damage. Your fixtures, your gauges and your paperwork have names. A procedure using somebody else's names gets ignored on day one.
One thing those three have in common is how the [JUDGMENT] step gets written. Write it as the question plus the acceptable answers, never as "use your judgment". On the water heater one that reads: if the existing shutoff fails, either isolate at the main and carry on, or stop and quote the shutoff as its own line. Both are fine. Leaving the choice unwritten is the part that isn't.
Figure 2 / Matrix
Three different jobs, the same two questions, and the end state is the one that stops the argument.
Three jobs, two questions
| The question | A water heater changeout | A new patient call | A shop-floor changeover |
|---|---|---|---|
| The trigger | A signed quote. | The phone ringing. | The last good piece of the previous run. |
| The end state | A photographed install with the old unit on the truck. | A booked appointment with the forms sent. | A signed first-piece check. |
Where procedures go to die
A folder nobody opens. You've got one already.
- Print it on paper, today, before you tidy the wording.
- Laminate the copy that lives next to a machine.
- Put one in the van rather than one more file in a drive.
- Tape the front desk copy inside the cupboard door, at eye height.
- Write the date and the two names at the bottom of every copy.
If it only exists in a drive, it exists for you and not for them.
Keep the drive copy, but treat it as the master rather than as the procedure. The one taped to the cupboard door is the procedure. The one in the drive is what you print the next one from.
Then use it as the training material, because now you have some. A written procedure is what makes the first-month plan for getting a team using AI land on something solid instead of on vibes.
Figure 3 / Flow
A procedure is not finished when it is written; it is finished when it leaves the file and gets used where the work happens.
Where the page goes
Automated
Drafted in a tool
The prompt is free, and any chat tool will do.
Needs a person
Walked and fixed on the floor
With the person who does the job.
Recorded
Put where the work happens
Printed. In the van, taped inside the cupboard at the front desk.
Affirmed
Used as the training material
- Automated
- Needs a person
- Recorded
- Affirmed
Why this matters more than the procedure
Here's the bigger reason to spend an afternoon on this.
A tool can only follow a process you can describe. Every automation you buy depends on it. So does every system anybody builds for you, and every bit of AI output you'd like to trust. Skip it, and you're paying people to guess at your business.
Which is why the scoring exercise in what to automate first treats written down or not as a hard gate, and not a tiebreaker.
Is your work written down, honestly?
One question, and answer it about last week, not about your intentions.
If your most experienced person didn't come in tomorrow, how much of what they do could somebody else follow from a page? That question has its own longer answer. Not from memory, and not by calling them. From a page.
The free AI readiness check is twenty questions, one tap each, about four minutes. Your finding and all five areas land on screen when you finish. Documentation and standardization are two of the five. They're the two that decide whether anything else you try with AI holds up.
What we're actually for
Writing procedures people actually follow is the oldest part of what we do. The prompt above is the whole trick, and it's free.
What we're useful for is the next bit. Which procedures to write first. How to get them out of the person who won't sit down. How to keep forty of them current without hiring anyone for it. That's a conversation, and twenty minutes of it costs nothing.