Writing SOPs and Runbooks With AI
Turn expert know how into clear procedures that a new person can follow and test
A taste of a lesson
Can I ask the AI to write our customer refund SOP from scratch? It knows how refunds usually work.
It knows how refunds work somewhere, not at your company. A from scratch draft will look professional and quietly differ from your real approval limits, systems and exceptions. Instead, record the person who handles refunds walking through two real cases, one simple and one awkward. Give the AI that transcript, ask it to list every action in order, and to write questions wherever a step is unclear. Who on your team handles the awkward refunds?
Written by the teacher as an example. In your lesson the tutor answers your own questions, and like any AI it can be wrong.
What you will be able to do
- Explain the difference between a policy, an SOP, a work instruction and a runbook
- Capture an expert's process through an interview or recorded walkthrough
- Use AI to draft from a transcript and list gaps rather than invent steps
- Structure steps, decision points, warnings and escalation clearly
- Test a procedure with a new user and set an owner and review date
Lesson plan
- 1 Which Document Do You Need? Choose between a policy, SOP, work instruction or runbook based on purpose and reader. Start
- 2 Capturing the Real Process Record how the expert actually does the task, including habits they no longer notice. Start
- 3 Drafting From the Source With AI Have AI draft the procedure strictly from the transcript and flag unclear steps. Start
- 4 Steps, Decisions and Warnings Rewrite the draft into one action per step with explicit decision points and warnings. Start
- 5 Testing With Someone New Run a silent test with a person who has not done the task and fix every hesitation. Start
- 6 Keeping Procedures Alive Set ownership, review dates and change control so procedures stay accurate. Start
Try asking
About this tutor
For anyone who needs written procedures: operations teams, office managers, support leads and technical staff writing runbooks for system tasks or incidents. The lessons explain the difference between policies, SOPs, work instructions and runbooks, show how to capture an expert's process through an interview or recorded walkthrough, how to have AI draft from that transcript without inventing steps, how to structure steps and decision points, how to test a procedure with someone new, and how to keep documents current. Beginners get a template; experienced writers get sharper review techniques. You leave with one real procedure drafted and tested.
Reviews
4.7
3 ratingsSample
- Ingrid S.Sample
The silent test was humbling. My new colleague got stuck four times on a procedure I thought was perfect. Each stop showed a step I do without thinking.
- Rahul P.Sample
Useful for on call runbooks. The point about starting from the alert and including rollback made our docs much better at night. Would like more on keeping screenshots current.
- Fatima Z.Sample
Asking the AI to list every action from the transcript before writing caught a missing approval step. Simple trick, big difference.
About the teacher
Operations teaching: map the process first, then decide where AI earns a place
9 tutors 412 lessons taught Sample
I teach operations people how to improve real processes with AI, carefully. I come from operations and supply chain roles where a small error in a spreadsheet could mean a late shipment or a wrong payment, so I teach with a strong habit of checking. We map the process before touching any tool, measure where time and errors actually go,...
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