Standard operating procedures betray a staggering poverty of intellect

摘要

During the past year,I have spent an inordinate amount of time on the irksome task of writing standard operating procedures.This has been a singularly disheartening experience.The idea that a set of written instructions documenting,in great detail,a routine or repetitive activity will in some way guarantee the quality of the end-result is,to put it mildly,fanciful.The thinking,and I use the word advisedly,behind this notion is that having formulated a set of instructions that describe the process,it is used as a template against which the operation is made to conform.In other words,the basic procedure should be carried out in exactly the same way and in exactly the same order as laid down in the SOP.