Standard Operating Procedures

We have been at this for a long time, and we understand the value of following proven systems and processes.

According to Wikipedia…

“A standard operating procedure, or SOP, is a set of step-by-step instructions compiled by an organization to help workers carry out routine operations. SOPs aim to achieve efficiency, quality output and uniformity of performance while reducing miscommunication and failure to comply with industry regulations.”

At White Mountain. we follow SOPs for everything that we know will be a task or series of tasks that will need to be repeated in a defined and consistent manner.  We generally follow industry-standard best practices for general IT management functions, and develop our own, as they relate to our unique processes and clients systems.  When we onboard a new client we follow SOPs for every step of the process, and as we get to know your workflow and internal procedures, we help develop custom SOPs specific to managing and supporting your technology.

Examples of customized client-specific SOPs that we create and maintain:

• Employee on-boarding and separation procedures
• Security Event and Major Incident Response procedures
• Emergency Lock-down procedure
• Notification procedure for key teams, executive, management, all staff
• After hours outage, notification and response
• SOPs for all key failover events (internet, phones, email etc)

Without being disciplined about following SOPs, how can anyone consistently achieve consistent, exceptional services for your users?

If each person doing the work takes the liberty of doing it “their own way”, I can guarantee that it will result in poor service and frustrated users. 

Not adhering to SOPs  leads to:

• Inconsistent and unreliable results
• Unnecessary security risks
• Lack of standards, which frustrates users, and makes ongoing support more difficult
• Callbacks and repeated interruptions for your users
• Excessive IT support costs

This is a perfect example of the advantage of working with a Managed IT Service Provider that is experienced enough and large enough to be committed to professional IT management.  It’s not easy to do, we often spend more time documenting and following up on an issue than we did actually fixing it.  But we make up for it in the long run, with increased efficiency across our entire client base.

In order to be able to maintain this level of excellence, your tech team needs CONSTANT professional guidance, oversight, and management, which is why doing IT support in-house without qualified, dedicated management staff can be such a disaster. 

Anyone delivering IT services without a full time dedicated management team will have a hard time maintaining this level of service.

Consistently following and maintaining SOPs is nearly impossible to achieve if you are depending on: 

A single employee, or even two or three internal employees, without dedicated IT management

• An IT service provider without a dedicated management team (dedicated managers don’t do the tech work!)
• An individual part-time employee, or a neighbor, friend, or IT guy down the street

If you think that you could use some help instituting SOPs in your company, give us a call anytime.