Before you start writing your procedure, give some thought to how this will benefit them both from a personal and business level. In other words, you can encourage the reader to use your procedures if you describe the ways their life will be easier if they follow the steps exactly as you have written them. Make sense?
Here’s a few examples.
- Business – describe how performing this procedure will benefit your business, for example, from an operational point of view, interacting with customers, or improving your quality of service.
- Drivers – if possible, connect this procedure to a business driver or customer request. For example, if customers complained that they wanted invoices delivered as PDFs, then highlight this in the benefit section as this illustrates your responsiveness to customer concerns and also helps the reader understand the purpose of adopting the procedure. It also helps other procedure writer maintain the SOP as it gives them some context.
- Productivity – give an example of how this procedure makes their life easier, for example, allowing them to complete a task faster, reducing the number of steps, or gives them more options. These type of benefits warm up the reader and encourage them to read the procedure more carefully. Why? Because they will anticipate that the procedure will remove current obstacles and impediments, making their working day more pleasant. And who doesn’t want that?
- Time Savers – everyone is looking for ways to shave a few minutes off their day. Identify the number one benefit this procedure will offer in terms of time saving. In general, procedures help you simplify tasks and clarify how tasks should be performed.
Look for ways to emphasize these in the benefit section but keep it simple. Don’t distract the reader from their main purpose, which is to perform the task. However, a few sentences at the start helps orient them, place things in context, and creates an expectation of how the procedure will help them perform their tasks.
If appropriate, give a short example, but keep this brief. You can also consider having a follow on section – ie what to do next – at the end of the procedure, suggesting what the reader should do next.
If you are creating online help, you can add these under the For More Information section.