SOP From a Recorded Walkthrough Transcript

If you can still record, have the expert handle a real piece of work, not a demo. Start at whatever triggers the process, such as a customer's email, and stop when the output exists. Ask them to say what they look at and why, not just what they click.

Having the work in front of them seems to help. In a small 2012 study of trauma surgeons describing an emergency procedure, heavy use of visual aids and surgical instruments made their descriptions of the steps more complete¹.

• Ask what they check at each point, and what would make them stop.
• Have them say aloud anything that happens off screen, like a phone call.
• At the end, ask what would have made this case go differently.

Already have a recording? Note where it starts, since walkthroughs often begin a step or two after the real trigger. If the expert is leaving, pair it with a role handover document for their open work, accounts and deadlines.

Many recording tools write the transcript for you. Loom puts one next to your video, with a button to copy it², and Microsoft Teams lets a meeting's organizer download the transcript as a Word file³. For a silent recording, watch it once and type a running log with timestamps. You'll get the steps but none of the reasons, so expect more questions.

Next, fix what the machine misheard. Auto-transcripts tend to get a name or acronym wrong the same way each time, so one find-and-replace fixes it throughout: "R M A" becomes RMA. Keep the timestamps, so you can jump back to the video when a step is unclear.

Read the transcript twice. On the first pass, mark the actions: open, check, enter, print, send. On the second, mark every point where the expert chose something. The reasons behind those choices are what a recording misses.

In a 2014 study, University of Southern California researchers filmed three expert surgeons teaching an emergency airway procedure and checked the transcripts against a gold-standard task list. On average, the experts left out 73% of the decision steps⁴ and about half the action steps. In follow-up interviews, they described 44% of the steps unprompted, and 66% once asked targeted questions.

The study's authors trace the gaps to knowledge that has become automatic, so expect your expert to leave things out too. The rules hide behind phrases like these.

These questions matter more than the steps. A newcomer who can't follow a step gets stuck and asks. One who guesses a rule produces work that looks right, and nobody notices until a customer does.

The US Environmental Protection Agency's guidance on SOPs gives a clear test. A reader with limited experience of the procedure, but a basic grasp of the work, should be able to carry it out unsupervised⁵. EPA also asks for a concise, step-by-step format in the active voice and present tense, with a flow chart. If the work crosses several teams, draw it as a process map.

• Purpose and scope: what it's for, and when it applies
• Trigger: the event that starts it, such as a return request
• Roles: who does each part, and who decides exceptions
• Inputs: the systems, forms and information needed first
• Steps: numbered, one action per step, verb first
• Decisions: each as a condition, a threshold and a default
• Output and records: what exists at the end, and where it's saved
• Not covered: stages the recording skipped, named as gaps

Use the team's own names for systems and screens. Never fill a skipped stage with a plausible step: an invented step reads exactly like a real one, so nobody knows to check it.

Turn each decision into one question the expert can answer in a sentence: the threshold, the test, the default or the name. "Can you explain your process?" gets you another walkthrough, not a rule.

Rank the questions by the damage a wrong guess would do, and send the costly ones first. Then write that damage into the SOP beside the rule. OSHA's process safety standard requires something similar of US sites that use highly hazardous chemicals at or above set quantities. Their written operating procedures must cover the consequences of deviating from operating limits and the steps to correct or avoid it⁶.

Fold each answer into the steps and delete the question. Anything still open on the expert's last day goes in the not-covered section, with a named owner.

Before anyone relies on it, have someone who has never done the job follow the SOP while the expert watches and stays quiet. Every place they stop or guess is a gap. EPA's guidance agrees, calling it especially helpful when someone other than the writer tests a draft⁵.

After that, give it an owner, a version number and a review date. EPA suggests reviewing each SOP every year or two, updating it whenever the process changes, and keeping a master list. An SOP library and review register keeps that list in one place.

For a head start, paste the transcript into the tool at the top of this page. It drafts the steps in the expert's terms and turns each unstated rule into a question.