Glossary
What is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure)?
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A standard operating procedure, or SOP, is a written step-by-step instruction document that lets a person repeat a process with the same outcome regardless of who runs it. SOPs originated in regulated industries (pharma, aviation, manufacturing) and are now standard in software, customer support, and onboarding for any task that has to be done the same way twice or more.
The bottleneck for every growing team is the same: the senior person who knows how to do the task becomes the only one who can do it. The SOP is the artifact that breaks that bottleneck. A good SOP is specific (the exact button, the exact setting, the exact file path), verifiable (a new hire can do the task by following the SOP and get the same result), and updated when the underlying process changes. The traditional format is a Word doc or wiki page; the modern format is a recorded screen walkthrough with screenshots embedded inline. Several tools now generate SOPs automatically from a screen recording (Kommodo, Scribe, Tango) — the recorder captures each click, the tool writes the steps, the result is a written guide that a new hire can follow without watching the video. Pullsy Pro's planned SOP export takes the same approach. Related terms: screen recording, video transcript, video message.