Shayne Daughenbaugh  00:00

What are our top areas? Let’s just go with top three. What are the top three areas that we want to capture? Because a company has a bazillion different processes, but where do we start? So I started with what processes or what departments are the most customer facing, because that’s super important to me, is to make sure that we have the standard customer experience. How we do things behind the scenes, the customers don’t need to know, don’t even care, but how we do things that are forward facing. We want to make sure that the variation has gone there, that it’s the same experience. Just like you go to a restaurant, a chain restaurant, they’re going to have the same experience, the same meals. It’s probably going to be cooked the same, the same ingredients, so that if I’m going, you know, from one state to the next, or even from one country to the next, it’s likely going to be something similar.

Catherine McDonald  00:58

Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Lean Solutions podcast. My name is Katherine McDonald, and today I am joined by my co-host, Shane Duffenbau. Shane, how are you?

Shayne Daughenbaugh  01:09

I am well, Catherine. Thank you so much. Very happy to be on with you, even though there’s this huge distance of miles and sea and land and whatnot, but here we are together talking about the things that kind of make us wonder or excite us or kind of put a burr under our saddle in regards to how business operates and the things that that that happen. So I’m super jazzed to be here with you. It’s always a fun time. So thanks for coming. Thank

Catherine McDonald  01:37

you. Yeah, we don’t feel distance when we get talking, should we don’t. So, okay. So, today, just for our listeners, Shane, we are going to talk about real-world SOP capture and deployment, and I love this topic. I know everybody talks about SOPs, as in the importance of having SOPs, but we don’t often talk about the whole process around creating, capturing before you even create the SOP, and then making sure the SOPs are implemented, and then how they’re managed. So we’re going to try and give in the next 25 minutes or so a rundown on how that’s done, and I think you’re in the perfect position, Shane, to talk to us about that, because you have started a new job recently, so obviously getting to grips with the SOPs is something that you have had to do, so I suppose first of all, can you tell us a little bit, maybe give us a bit of an overview of what you’ve experienced so far in your company when it comes to SOPs, and we’ll go from there.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  02:35

Sure, so imagine a having a small company that in a matter of just a couple years, double continues to double in size, and in doubling in size, it’s not just one, you know, one plant, one campus, but there’s multiple campuses, and it goes across multiple states, you know, so the company I’m now working with in the fitness injury, super fun people to work with, but not but, but, and they are just go-getters, so they have grown this company just exponentially in the last several years to where the problem is now that they have all of these different locations in different areas that they may have captured, they may have brought them in via merger, or they may have just kind of built their own, but that trying to have that that same standard of how we do things here, especially when you have people that are merging, they’re coming from other companies, maybe they used to do something different, so now there’s all these different ways to do stuff. So, what do we do? Well, what they did was they hired me to come along and base my first really big project is capturing and deploying the SOPs. You know how we do things, and, and to I want to make sure that that that we try to unearth any assumptions, and that is when my first one is understanding that not everyone speaks the same language. When I say SOP, some people in my company don’t quite understand what that is, but SOP is standard operating procedure. This is the process we do, or this is how we do whatever process that we have here. Maybe it’s how to load the napkins, or how to change, you know the padding or whatever it may be, think of all the different things that you do in your company. How do you, how do you do that? That’s the standard operating procedure, that’s what we’re trying to standardize, and make sure that everyone is doing it the same way. Within some, there you know, there’s always a little bit of nuance, a little bit of wiggle room, because of your situation, might be a little bit different, but you know, and I think Katherine, you could probably talk to why we would even want to have everyone do it the same way, especially you know, taking into consideration, you know, what what the service we’re providing is very. Client forward,

Catherine McDonald  05:01

yeah, yeah, yeah, so that is not an easy task, because presumably there’s different managers in each of these different departments in across, you know, in multiple locations across the globe, and each of them have, as we know, human behavior is just, it is such a way that everybody just develops habits and behaviors, and they don’t necessarily be the same habits and behaviors as the company across, you know, the way, the way from them. So it’s not an easy thing to get everybody doing everything the same way, and what one person thinks is the best way, another person will have their version of, well, this is the best way, right? So inevitably we end up getting a lot of variation, and as you say, well, what’s the problem with that? If the job gets done well, generally within variation there is some level of waste. It might not be the same waste in each company or department, but

Shayne Daughenbaugh  05:56

yeah,

Catherine McDonald  05:57

definitely some kind of waste. And there is nearly always a better way when we look at it, so Shane, when you set out to do this, did you see a lot of variation, and how are you, or are you at the point yet where you are addressing that variation, and how do you do that?

Shayne Daughenbaugh  06:15

So, yes, I have seen lots of variation, but I’ve also been informed, I’m being still new to the company, and having the company so spread out, I haven’t been able to be everywhere, you know, in all of our sites, just because of time, but I have been told that there’s all kinds of different variations, there’s different ways of doing things, there’s even different SOPs that have been written that are scattered all around SharePoint, and people are mining SharePoint, trying to figure out, you know, spelunking down into the files, trying to figure out what is the most recent one, but we wanted to have something that that everyone could, could go to a resource that everyone could go to that would ensure everyone has the best chance of success, because that’s what an SOP does, it says, hey, this is what success looks like, and one of the things, especially for us, is we want the customer experience to be the same, whether you’re in one state or whether you’re all the way across to, you know, four or 510, states over. We want the experience for the customer to be the same. So it’s super important that we have the same way of doing things, you know in making sure that, yeah, this is the best practice that we have. So, here’s, let me, let me just give you a quick flyover. I don’t want to, I don’t want to spend a terrible amount of detail, because this is unique to my situation, but I’m sure that there are going to be some principles that people can be able to get, and I’ll kind of walk you through some of the processes. How it’s been working for me. First of all, was trying to figure out, okay, what are our top areas? Let’s just go with top three. What are the top three areas that we want to capture, because a company has a bazillion different processes, so many different departments, so many things that that we could capture that are important, but what are where do we start. So, where I started with is trying to understand what the top three areas or departments, maybe another word of that we use with my company’s playbook. What are the top three playbooks, and what I determined, or what I decided was those things that are most forward facing. There are some, there are some processes and playbooks and departments that are more behind the scenes. I wanted to focus on, let’s capture all the processes, so that we can ensure that the customers have the same experience, no matter where they are. So I chose and strategized with the top three playbooks. Are worked with some leaders in regards to, hey, does this sound appropriate? Got that feedback, and then from there I just asked the subject matter experts, okay? If these are the top three areas, what are the basic, or you know, yes, what are the basic processes? What are the main things that we need to do, in order, you know, to accomplish this, if it, if it be, you know, working the register, if it be stocking in the back, or whatever it might be. What are those top, or what are all the things that need to happen? So then, in this, this might interest you in a bit. So, when I had that list, I had here all the daily things, here are the weekly things, here are the monthly things we need to remember to do, and they were all listed out for me. Then I actually asked Claude, I went to AI, and I said, “Okay, hey, I need you to create for me a prioritization spreadsheet, and this is what I want the prioritization spreadsheet to have. I wanted to have these five things: there is like risk and exposure and frequency, customer need, and I don’t know, it wasn’t urgency, it was another one, so I gave it all these things that kind of worked with the AI to help me build this out, so that I have a spreadsheet that has all of them, you know, and there’s a real easy way to add a. All up. Here’s the priorities. Here’s what I think is going to be a way of kind of sequencing by how hard it is for me and what I need to do.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  10:08

So I prioritized and I sequenced all the SOPs in in a really nice spreadsheet, passing that along. I’m working with the subject matter experts in these areas to say, hey, does this look correct? The way I, the way I prioritize those, is this, is this good? And this takes time, right? This, this, that’s the thing that, for some of us that are very much ADHD, patients is very difficult when you’re waiting for the people who are doing the work to tell you how to do the work, can get a little bit frustrating, not on them, just on the fact that it just, it just takes time, right?

Catherine McDonald  10:47

Really, wait until people are in space where they can communicate with you, where they’re not under pressure or stress, because that’s not going to help, and then they’re going to not like you, Shane, if you come along and try to force the information out of them, so yeah, it does. I know what you mean. It takes quite a lot of patience, and so the prioritization and the sequencing, that’s really good. And that obviously, because it’s documented, allows you to share that throughout the company, so everybody understands what the priorities are when the particular SOP that they want done is going to get right. So any of the conflict or confusion, and at the same time, Shane, were you, was there a standardized format for SOPs, or did you have to create that as well?

Shayne Daughenbaugh  11:28

No, we’ve, we’ve kind of been creating it as we’ve been going along, trying to figure out, you know, I had an idea, because doing SOPs before, hey, I know how I want things to do, but now I’m trying to adapt that into the language and the culture of this company that I’m now working with. Hey, how do you want it? What makes sense to you? Because I’m not going to be the user of the SOPs, I need to make sure that it’s those that are going to be using it that the format makes sense to them. But I do have a couple caveats when I’m talking to people about when we’re, you know, if I were to ask you, you know, a subject matter expert, Catherine, I have a couple caveats, and one of them is I want to make sure that this is consumable, I want to make sure that this is accessible, that we’re using simple language that anyone can use, we’re also putting it in a way that is almost bite-size and not just this big, huge, long wall of text, like the SOPs that we’re creating, we’re putting into an online platform, so that people can access them a lot more easier than having to hunt and pack and try to figure out what folder it is in in SharePoint or wherever.

Catherine McDonald  12:34

Amazing, yeah, I think that I think the day of long written SOPs is done. We just have to, I

Shayne Daughenbaugh  12:40

hope so.

Catherine McDonald  12:41

Opportunity at our fingertips to clean with those groups.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  12:46

Yeah, so here’s what I’ve been doing, you know. So that was how I kind of strategize now, put things together, and it’s very loose, and it will be continued to be refined and honed and built out, but at least that gave me some place to start, and that’s what I want to, I want to make sure we tell people that you have just start, just start capturing. So, after I have kind of a loose strategy, then how do I make it easy on the subject matter experts? And here’s, here’s what I’m finding my job is, as if you are the subject or expert, Catherine, my job is to make it as easy as possible, so that you can get back to your work. I can capture what I need to from you, and you can get back to your work. So, what that looks like, it’s a pretty simple process, where we would sit together, maybe it’s 1520 minutes, maybe it’s a half hour, and I just ask you, hey, let’s outline real quick, kind of broad strokes, what is it that that we’re going to be capturing, you know, maybe you know, because I have this prioritization list. Here’s the SOP we’re going to capture, but let’s, let’s just collect some notes, so we understand where we’re going, and that could simply be, you know, let’s start with what’s the key concept or description of what we’re trying to capture. Let’s capture that, and I will, I will, full disclosure, I am stealing this right from John Loduca, from the founder of Playbook Builder, who’s, who’s shown me how to do some things a little bit differently. I’m just grabbing it right from him, and he’s a great resource for those that are interested in hearing a little bit more about this, but you know the key concept. And then, how are you going to open it? I’m going to ask you, okay? How do you want to open this? You know, what are some things you want to say about it, or describe it, just real quick. This is, this isn’t a script. I’m just looking for you to just jot notes, then tell me four to six talking points, and then how do you want to close this? So we just spent 20 minutes walking through this, and you just walk me through whatever that process is. Now that becomes the script for me, not for you. And here’s, here’s what I mean by this. I want to make this easy on you. So basically, I want to interview you, and in doing so, you’ve just given me all of this stuff, so maybe we’re going to record it audio, or you know, type it down, but what I. I’m going to do is I’m going to use that which you just gave me. Hey, here’s the key concept. Make sure we understand we’re staying in the lane, you know. Here’s the talking points, so that as I say to you, okay, Catherine, tell me how to do this job. What is this? Tell me what this job entails. And then you start feeding me that information, and along the way I can say, oh yeah, and you mentioned this point earlier. Tell me about that. Where does that come in? So, you don’t have to remember anything. You’re the expert. All you have to do is teach me how to do it. And then we’re capturing, we’re capturing that, so we have kind of the outline, the important points, the notes. I’m going to use that as kind of either you could call it a script, but it’s more like the shot list. And then I’m just going to ask you to teach me how to do it, and I will be prompting you as to how to do that. Now, here’s the thing that will blow, blow everything away when it comes to creating an SOP, and this isn’t – this isn’t rocket science, a lot of people are doing this now, but when you think about all the resources we have, technology we have, start recording your SOPs, start video recording your SOPs, whether that be if they’re doing a manual labor thing, get out a tripod, get a nice mic, and they could be super cheap, or they are super inexpensive, that’s what I’m going to say.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  16:20

Very inexpensive to get a nice mic that just plugs right into your phone, and then I can just tripod my phone up or hold it, and you just walk me through it. And when we’re doing that, like that, capturing the video of it is where we capture the humanity. Remember, we talked about we’re moving away from just walls of text, there’s no humanity in that, there’s no nuance in that, that is just kind of rote memory, kind of a thing. But if I get you on camera to start talking to me and start teaching me, and I start asking you questions, you’re going to remember things that actually like enhance this SOP in such an amazing way, because I can challenge you. Hey, why do you do it that way? Well, I learned that if you don’t do it this way, that these, these are some of the things that can happen. You’re not going to have that in just a text SOP.

Catherine McDonald  17:11

Yes, right?

Shayne Daughenbaugh  17:13

You’re gonna get that from the people

Catherine McDonald  17:15

100% And I just think if you skip forward a little bit about what we’re using the SOPs, for obviously, you know, as you said, to train and coach people, make sure they’re doing things the right way, but SOPs are your platform for improvement. They are

Shayne Daughenbaugh  17:28

the

Catherine McDonald  17:29

only way you can improve is if you have a very clear current state, and I mean, how better, you know, can you get than having the whole process on video, so you get your whole team to stand around and look at themselves doing the process, and that’s where you really capture the opportunities for improvement. I think now some industries and some kinds of work might be a little bit more difficult than others, but nothing’s nothing impossible these days, even if you work on computers, nothing’s impossible with with screen shares and screenshots and everything, so I think that is a great idea, Shane. So, you’ve, you’ve prioritized in sequence, you have your standard format, and you’re, and you’re working on the video format, and you’re observing and co-capturing with people. Excellent, that is again, so many companies are not doing this, and it’s a missed opportunity, because it really, I know you’re saying it, you need to have patience, it takes time, but it is worth it. It is a small bit of time compared to the problems you’ll have if you don’t understand your current state.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  18:30

So, we just spent you and I just spent, you know, if I, if you were the subject expert, about 20 minutes just outlining what we’re going to talk about, getting it, getting the juices going in your head, the creativity going, and remembering things, then I’m going to record you doing it, and I could, it could just be a five minute recording, it could be a three minute recording, it could be we could break down a really long process into just bite-sized videos of each of the steps. The beauty of this is, then, so maybe we’ve spent an hour together, and I say, Catherine, we’re done, like you go back to doing your work. I take this, and then I use the technology that we have. You know, there are so many different AIs out there, or transcription services, free, and then some, that I can send the video into and just ask it to transcribe, or to summarize. Either one depends on how detailed you really need it to be in regard to the steps, but if I send it through some kind of a transcription service or a summarization service, I can get a good seven eight 80% there, and I didn’t have to type anything. All I did was hit record, I asked you questions, I engaged with you, I picked up some of the great nuances of really what makes this process unique and what makes it special, and what, what are some things we need to avoid, whatever it might be that I can capture in video that wouldn’t, if you were actually, if I just said, Catherine, write this down, because if you’re just going to write it down, you’re just going to go step by step by step, and there’s no humanity in that, there’s, there’s, that’s, that’s not the best. Word, but it’s the word I’m using, but there’s no life, there’s no life in that, right? No,

Catherine McDonald  20:05

no, no, it’s just so much more interesting to watch humans doing the work and to engage that way. I have another question. There, so at the moment it sounds like you’re maybe the process owner, are you, for all of the SOPs, the

Shayne Daughenbaugh  20:17

way we, the way we’re sitting and standing it? Yes, yeah,

Catherine McDonald  20:20

so different in other organizations I’ve worked in, where you don’t have one person doing this creation of all the SOPs, you’ve got maybe the manager and the team doing it together, and because I suppose of that it’s really important to have roles and responsibilities in the team really clear on who’s the process owner, who’s going to be the one being clear on the review date, calling the team in to do the review, even just informally observing the process themselves and talking to the team and updating the process. So, I mean, there’s a few different ways to do this, isn’t there?

Shayne Daughenbaugh  20:57

Yeah, yeah, there is. And, and in your point is spot on with giving ownership to the team, or to, you know, the supervisor of that. I’m taking ownership now because I want to get this going, and I understand that the supervisor and the team, they don’t have a lot of time to build this out. I mean, it’d be great if they could, but unfortunately, their other work doesn’t stop. So I take it, I build it out, you know, after I get that transcription or whatnot, I can then reformat it into the format that we have decided. Hey, this is the best way it looks. It’s just, you know, quick five, six, maybe max five or six big chunks that talk about all the steps. Then I send it back to you, you’re reviewing it, you’re saying, actually, no, it’s this, I meant this, or yeah, that’s a good point, but the combination of doing that, then get allowing me to just, you know, take the work and quickly process it, which AI and transcription services do an amazing job of that. Maybe I can edit the video just a little bit, but again, we’re not looking for perfection, you know. This isn’t a production, this is something that’s useful, like if you look at a toolbox and you see nice shiny tools, you can probably believe that those aren’t used. The tools used are the ones that have a little bit of wear that you know that aren’t perfect, that don’t look good, but they are useful. That’s what we’re trying to do now. Eventually, will I be turning this back over to the owners? There’s a really good chance that I will, because I believe, like you’re saying, I believe in ownership. I believe in these, in these teams owning what it is, and also I don’t want to be the bottleneck, if at all possible, for when they come up with, hey, we’ve, we’ve done this this way, but we’re now, we’re actually, these last three months, we’ve been doing it this way, we should probably update our SOP. I want them to be able to do

Catherine McDonald  22:40

our co-creating them with them anyway. In the first place, it’s not like you are just following them around and documenting things and putting them in a document and filing it away. You are actually having the conversations, you’re giving them control over what was into it. So, I mean, that has to be the first step. And then, yeah, as you say, hopefully in time there can be that ownership. And so, so all we’re really talking about today is the SOP capture, and then deployment, so very quickly. Shane, are there any more steps that we need to consider then that we haven’t already talked about?

Shayne Daughenbaugh  23:11

Not, not at least not that are that are top of mind right now, like, as I’m thinking of, is I’m in, you know, elbows deep in this, or what did you say? Head and heels, I’m heading heels in this process, in this work, in this project. You know, it does. You know, as I’m thinking about it, it is, how do I, how do I determine what my top three areas are? Then prioritize the SOPs for that. Then make it easy on the subject matter experts and capture from them using video and technology to ease that process, and to really refine it in a nice way. Get them to review it and own it. Get them to try it. Of course, we always, when we’re doing an SOP, a good, you know, practice is not just with the subject matter experts, have them review it, but give it to someone who’s not an expert at all in this process, and see, does it make sense to them? Could they follow it? Fantastic, that’s what we want to do. And then we’re, you know, as we move forward, there’ll be other things as we deploy it, you know. How do we deploy that? It’s super important for in my line of, and in our line of work, in our industry to make sure that that we own the change that that we, we don’t just allow things, just kind of like I hope it works. I’m just going to throw this out there and hope everyone follows it, you know, to have a system and a strategy, that’s that’s a whole nother topic. But for how we’re going to roll this out in a way that is human centric and it’s not just done to people but done with people, but also builds communicate it and build this up in such a way that gets people excited, and that’s that’s the fun thing that I have seen in my work, is as I’m slowly talking about this, and I’m just feeding intel little bits at a time, because we’re not ready for, you know, deployment, but I’m feeding intel a little bit at a time, and every time I do it, I’m giving them a reason why. They should be interested in

Catherine McDonald  25:02

this excellent. Okay, so I had one question, which is around you mentioned having to be patient, but then sometimes you’ve got senior leaders who are not so patient, and they want the SOPs done, but they do see it more as a, you know, maybe I’m not saying your company does, but in general, I know this happens, it’s kind of treated as a tick box activity, but we need them, we need them to pass audits, or we need them for this or that, and and then you know, how do we communicate? Let’s say we’re a frontline manager, how do we communicate with our senior leaders around, you know, needing to be patient to get these SOPs done and in place, and, and how do we communicate that it will take time, because of the nature of, as you just said, the observation, the co-creation, and all of this, and what’s the best way, and then again, you may not see the impact of this work for a while, until we start deploying and checking in, and the coaching piece that has to follow, so, so, How do we communicate all of that and show the importance of it longitudinally? I suppose to senior leadership.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  26:07

I mean, I feel like that’s something that should be said at the front end before we even get this started. I want my, I want my leaders to know, hey, like this may go pretty smoothly and quickly, or it may take a good six months, depending on how complicated, or how complex, not complicated, how complex the company is, and the different things that we do, and what you want to capture, because maybe not everything is is needed to be in an SOP, and it sounds kind of heretical, but you know, when we think about, hey, what is the minimal viable product that’s going to continue to move us forward, that we can use on a regular basis, and that we can use to improve, you know. Then you might need to decide and help the leadership determine, hey, this is what we’re going to tackle now, and this is more realistic of what we’re trying to do, because we have to work at the speed of human, like that’s that’s just the reality, and I would hope that my leadership that I’m working with, and in my case, definitely they’re they’re all on board with this, but that I would hope that any leadership that is is taking on a project like this has that understanding and and knows, okay, this this may take a while, you know, but but they also have it’s they don’t have to just sit and wait, they can actually be active in their waiting, they can be promoting these kind of things, they can be supporting the efforts, they can be the one communicating these little met these little messages and bits of information along the way to their people, just to try to try to build that desire for something, oh, this is actually going to be something good. This is going to be this is going to be more than just a manual. This is going to be something that, that helps us understand how we’re supposed to do our work, but also, as we mentioned at the beginning of this, give us a baseline for what we need to improve, because maybe we thought this is the way it is, and you know, three or four months, we’re following it, going, and there’s. I think there’s a better way. Yeah, the work we did was not in vain. The work we did was necessary to be able to see that the improvement that could be down the line. Yeah, this is kind of making sense, and just kind of like spattered it all. It

Catherine McDonald  28:17

makes perfect sense, because I think the worst thing you could do was set about just SOP creation and deployment, without considering, not considering, without putting continuous improvement first, without having that continuous improvement mindset, because all of this has to link to improvement of processes over time. So you’ve not just got your process improvement, you’ve got to get then your process management in place, how you manage your SOPs to actually inform the improvement, so unless, as you say, you’ve got all that worked out and scoped out at the start, all it is is the tick box activity to put SOPs, to write SOPs, and have them filed away somewhere in some lovely looking file, but that’s absolutely no good. So I think that has to be a key point out of this episode for people that look, it’s easier these days to create and deploy your SOPs. What’s it all for? What’s it all leading to? Where’s the joined up thinking when it comes to your SOPs and your continuous improvement? And so, Shane, it has been an absolute pleasure. And thank you for sharing your experience of where you are at at the moment. It’s been great listening to you. I was saying to you at the start, it’s lovely listening to you, and you know how the excitement really does come through about you, you, and how you feel about your work at the moment. So, I love listening to you. Yeah, and I do too. So, listen, we will catch up again soon. And for everybody else, thank you for listening to the Lean Solutions podcast. We have great guests on most weeks, we have different guests, so check in every week to hear the latest episode. We’re down to about 30 minutes now for easy listening, and thanks to everybody who works tirelessly in the background to edit our episodes. And yes, we will see you soon, Shane. Talk to you soon, and goodbye for now, everyone.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  29:57

All right, thank you, ladies and gentlemen.