An SOP turns “the way we do this” into something another person, or an agent, can actually follow. It hands the worker the expected path instead of a guess. In Benali’s operating model, an SOP often sits underneath a core activity and explains how that named unit of work gets done. When the work becomes repeatable enough for AI, the SOP can become part of a skill.
A recipe card in a kitchen shows it. If it only says “make the sauce good,” it’s useless. A good one names the ingredients, the order, the timing, and the signs that something’s done.
Why you care
The first version usually comes from doing the work manually, noticing the real steps, and writing them down, including the tribal knowledge everyone assumes is obvious. A good SOP also marks what judgment stays human: prepare the draft, flag unusual items, wait for approval before sending. Once repeatable work is written clearly, you train people faster, delegate to agents better, and stop paying the memory tax every time the work comes back. A knowledge base keeps SOPs reusable instead of scattered across chat threads.