Standard operating procedure
A standard operating procedure is a written definition of how a recurring task is done — the steps, who owns them, and what to do when something goes wrong — so the task does not depend on which person happens to run it.
Also written: SOPArabic: إجراء التشغيل المعياري
Why it precedes any system
You cannot configure a system, or automate a process, that nobody has agreed on. Writing the SOP is usually where the disagreement surfaces — and the disagreement is the useful part, because it was already costing something invisibly.
What separates a real one from a document nobody reads
An owner, an exception path, and a date it was last true. A procedure with no named owner is a description, not a procedure; one with no exception path describes only the day everything works.
They are also the automation specification
A well-written SOP is close to a build brief: the trigger, the ordered steps, the decision points, and what happens on failure. That is why writing them is rarely wasted work even when nothing is automated afterwards.
Related terms
Questions people ask
Detailed enough that a competent new joiner can run the task without asking. Beyond that, detail decays faster than it helps.
The people who do the work, reviewed by whoever owns the outcome. SOPs written entirely by outsiders describe the process as it was explained, not as it runs.
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