Info-Tech Research Group1 1 Info-Tech Research Group, Inc. is a global leader in providing IT research and advice. Info-Tech’s products and services combine actionable insight and relevant advice with ready-to-use tools and templates that cover the full spectrum of IT concerns. © Info-Tech Research Group Inc. Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind Change your focus from satisfying auditors to driving process optimization, consistent IT operations, and effective knowledge transfer. Info-Tech's products and services combine actionable insight and relevant advice with ready-to-use tools and templates that cover the full spectrum of IT concerns.© 1997 – 2016 Info-Tech Research Group

Info-Tech Research Group2 2 Project Outline Prioritize, Optimize, and Document Critical SOPs Identify and prioritize undocumented/outdated critical processes Reduce effort and improve usability with visual documentation Optimize and document critical processes Establish a Sustainable Documentation Process Establish guidelines for identifying and organizing SOPs Write an SOP for creating and maintaining SOPs Plan SOP work sessions to put a dent into your documentation backlog Identify a Content Management Solution Understand the options when it comes to content management solutions Use Info-Tech’s evaluation tool to determine the right approach for you Executive Brief Executive Summary Project Rationale Case Study Project Structure Tools and Templates Roadmap SOP Project Workbook SOP Project Roadmap Tool Document Management Checklist Publishing/Doc Mgmt. Solution Evaluation Tool SOP Examples and Templates

Info-Tech Research Group3 3 Most organizations struggle to document and maintain SOPs as required, leading to process inconsistencies and inefficiencies. These breakdowns directly impact the performance of IT operations. Effective SOPs streamline training and knowledge transfer, improve transparency and compliance, enable automation, and ultimately decrease costs as processes improve and expensive breakdowns are avoided. Documenting SOPs is not just good practice; it directly impacts IT efficiency and your bottom line. Frank Trovato, Senior Manager, Infrastructure Research Info-Tech Research Group Do your SOPs drive process optimization? ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

Info-Tech Research Group4 4 This Research is Designed For:This Research Will Help You: This Research Will Assist:This Research Will Help You: This Research Is Designed For:This Research Will Help You: This Research Will Also Assist:This Research Will Help Them: Our understanding of the problem IT Process Owners IT Infrastructure Managers IT Service Managers System Administrators And more… Identify, prioritize, and document SOPs for critical business processes. Discover opportunities for overall process optimization by documenting SOPs. Develop documentation best practices that support ongoing maintenance and review. CTOs Business unit leaders Understand the need for and value of documenting SOPs in a usable format. Help set expectations around documentation best practices. Extend IT best practices to other parts of the business.

Info-Tech Research Group5 5 Resolution Situation Complication Info-Tech Insight Executive summary Most organizations know it is good practice to have SOPs as it improves consistency, facilitates process improvement, and contributes to efficient operations. Though the benefits are understood, many organizations don't have SOPs and those that do don't maintain them. Writing SOPs is the last thing most people want to do, so the work gets pushed down the priority list and the documents become dated. Promoting the use of SOPs can also face staff resistance as the documentation is seen as time consuming to develop and maintain, too convoluted to be useful, and generally out of date. Overcome staff resistance while implementing a sustainable SOP documentation approach by doing the following: ◦ Create visual documents that can be scanned. Flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams are quicker to create, take less time to update, and are ultimately more usable than a dense manual. ◦ Use simple, but effective document management practices. ◦ Make SOPs part of your project deliverables rather than an afterthought. That includes checking documentation status as part of your change management process. Extend these principles to other areas of IT and business processes. The survey data and examples in this report include application development and business processes as well as IT operations. 1.Create visual documents, not dense SOP manuals. 2.Start with high-impact SOPs. Identify the most critical undocumented SOPs and document them first. 3.Integrate SOP creation into project requirements and create SOP approval steps to ensure documentation is reviewed and completed in a timely fashion.

Info-Tech Research Group6 6 Most organizations struggle to create and maintain SOP documents, especially in North America, despite the benefits An ad hoc approach to SOPs almost certainly means documents will be out of date and ineffective. The same is also true when updating SOPs as part of periodic concerted efforts to prepare for an audit, annual review, or certification process, and this makes the task more imposing. Incorporating SOP updates as part of regular change management processes ensures documents are up to date and usable. This can also make reviews and audits much more manageable. It isn’t unusual for us to see infrastructure or operations documentation that is wildly out of date. We’re talking months, even years. Often it was produced as one big effort and then not reliably maintained. – Gary Patterson, Consultant, Quorum Resources North American companies are traditionally more technology focused than process focused, and that is reflected in the approach to documenting SOPs. Organizations are most likely to update documents on an ad hoc basis or via periodic formal reviews. Less than 25% keep SOPs updated as needed. Source: Info-Tech Research Group; N=104

Info-Tech Research Group7 7 Document SOPs to improve knowledge transfer, optimize processes, and ultimately save money Benefits of documented SOPsImpact of undocumented/undefined SOPs Improved training and knowledge transfer: Routine tasks can be delegated to junior staff (freeing senior staff to work on higher priority tasks). Without documented SOPs: Tasks will be difficult to delegate, key staff become a bottleneck, knowledge transfer is inconsistent, and there is a longer onboarding process for new staff. IT automation, process optimization, and consistent operations: Defining, documenting, and then optimizing processes enables IT automation to be built on sound processes, so consistent positive results can be achieved. Without documented SOPs: IT automation built on poorly-defined, unoptimized processes leads to inconsistent results. Compliance: Compliance audits are more manageable because the documentation is already in place. Without documented SOPs: Documenting SOPs to prepare for an audit becomes a major time-intensive project. Transparency: Visually documented processes answer the common business question of “why does that take so long?” Without documented SOPs: Other areas of the organization may not understand how IT operates, which can lead to confusion and unrealistic expectations. Cost savings: Work can be assigned to the lowest level of support cost, IT operations achieve greater efficiency, and expensive breakdowns are avoided. Without documented SOPs: Work may be distributed uneconomically, money may be wasted through inefficient processes, and the organization is vulnerable to costly disruptions.

Info-Tech Research Group8 8 COBIT, ISO, and ITIL aren’t a complete solution Adopting a framework such as ITIL, COBIT, or ISO doesn’t always mean that SOP documents are accurate, effective, or up to date. Although these frameworks emphasize the importance of documenting processes, they tend to focus more on process development and requirements than on actual documentation. In other words, they deal more with what needs to be done than with how to do it. This research will focus more on the documentation process itself – so how to go about creating, updating, optimizing, managing, and distributing SOP documents. Being ITIL and ISO compliant hasn’t solved our documentation problem. We’re still struggling. – Vendor Relationship Manager, Financial Services Industry

Info-Tech Research Group9 9 Hard dollar recovery costs Backup specialist (vendor) to assist with restoring data from tape $12,000 Temps to re-enter 1 month of data$5,000 Weekend OT for 4 people (approximately 24 hours per person) $5,538 Productivity cost for affected employees for 1 day of downtime $76,923 Total$99,462 Intangible costs High “goodwill” impact for internal staff and customers. Inadequate SOPs lead to major data loss and over $99,000 in recovery costs Situation IT supports storage nodes replicated across two data centers. SOPs for backup procedures did not include an escalation procedure for failed backups or a step to communicate successful backups. Management was not aware of the issue and therefore could not address it before a failure occurred. Incident Primary storage had a catastrophic failure, and that put pressure on the secondary storage, which then also failed. All active storage failed and the data corrupted. Daily backups were failing due to lack of disk space on the backup device. The organization had to resort to monthly tape backups. Impact Lost 1 month of data (had to go back to the last tape backup). Recovery also took much longer because recovery procedures were also not documented. Key steps such as notifying impacted customers were overlooked. Customers were left unhappy not only with the outage and data loss but also the lack of communication. CASE STUDY 1 Company Source A mid-sized US organization with over 1,000 employees Info-Tech Interview The data loss pointed out a glaring hole in our processes – the lack of an escalation procedure. If I knew backups weren’t being completed, I would have done something about that immediately. – Senior Division Manager, Information Technology Division

Info-Tech Research Group10Info-Tech Research Group10 IT services company optimizes its SOPs using “Lean” approach Lean and SOPs Standardized work is important to Lean’s philosophy of continuous improvement. SOPs allow for replication of the current best practices and become the baseline standard for member collaboration toward further improvements. For more on Lean’s approach to SOPs, see “Lean Six Sigma Quality Transformation Toolkit (LSSQTT) Tool #17.” Atrion’s approach Atrion is focused on documenting high-level processes that improve the client and employee experience or which can be used for training. Cross-functional teams collaborate to document a process and find ways to optimize that SOP. Atrion leverages visual documentation as much as possible: flowcharts, illustrations, video screen captures, etc. Outcomes Large increase in usable, up-to-date documentation. Process and efficiency improvements realized and made repeatable. Success has been so significant that Atrion is planning to offer SOP optimization training and support as a service for its clients in the future. CASE STUDY 2 Company Source Atrion Info-Tech Interview Atrion provides IT services, solutions, and leadership to clients in the 250+ user range. After adopting the Lean framework for its organization, it has deliberately focussed on optimizing its documentation.Lean framework When we initiated a formal process efficiency program a little over a year ago and began striving towards a culture of continuous improvement, documenting our SOPs became key. We capture how we do things today and how to make that process more efficient. We call it current state and future state mapping of any process. – Michelle Pope, COO, Atrion Networking Corp.

Info-Tech Research Group11Info-Tech Research Group11 Strategies to overcome common documentation challenges Common documentation challengesInfo-Tech’s methodology Where to start. For organizations with very few (if any) documented SOPs, the challenge is where to start. Apply a client focus to prioritize SOPs. Start with mission-critical operations, service management, and disaster recovery. Lack of time. Writing SOPs is viewed as an onerous task, and IT staff typically do not like to write documentation or lack the time. Use flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams over traditional dense manuals. Flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams take less time to create and maintain, and the output is far more usable than traditional manuals. Inconsistent document management. Documents are unorganized, e.g. hard to find documents or you don’t know if you have the correct, latest version. Keep it simple. You don’t need a full-time SOP librarian if you stick to a simple, but consistent approach to documentation management. Simple is easier to follow (therefore, be consistent). Documentation is not maintained. More urgent tasks displace documentation efforts. There is little real motivation for staff to keep documents current. Ensure accountability at the individual and project level. Incorporate documentation requirements into performance evaluations, project planning, and change control procedures. Use Info-Tech’s methodology to streamline the SOP documentation process.

Info-Tech Research Group12Info-Tech Research Group12 Use this blueprint as a building block to complete these other Info-Tech projects Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan Define appropriate objectives for DR, build a roadmap to close gaps, and document your incident response plan. Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA Understand business requirements, clarify capabilities, and close gaps. Standardize the Service DeskStandardize the Service Desk – Module 2 & 3 Improve reporting and management of incidents, and build service request workflows. Extend the Service Desk to the Enterprise Position IT as an innovator.

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