The operating procedure is the heart of any serious effort to develop infrastructure in the church. Here on Executive Pastor Online, you’ll find lots of content about infrastructure development and the role of the Management System in this process. More than any other document type in the Management System will be the Operating Procedure and associated forms, work instructions, effectiveness measures, etc.
The first step in writing an Operating Procedure is developing a “process flowchart.” The best way to get this done is by involving a team of people who understand how the process currently runs and/or how it should run in the future. Get everyone together in a room with a whiteboard and begin the discussion.
Break the process down step by step, beginning to draw a flowchart on the board. Don’t be afraid to get into the details of the process. What are the key decision points? How does the process flow depending on a key decision point?
To illustrate, I’ve added a new document to the Resources area of this website. It’s a First Time Guest Assimilation process flowchart that we developed.
There are also many examples of Operating Procedures listed HERE. It’s not until the flowchart is done that the Operating Procedure writing begins. As documented in the flowchart, each step in the process is described in detail in the written portion of the document.
Take a look at the examples and get started!