How it looks like when you don't have a SOP
Have you ever felt like a firefighter?
I recall a conversation with a school principal where she described her work as firefighting. Day in and out she always has to find new ways of resolving student’s problems. Things seem never-ending.
If this sounds like you then you’re probably struggling with a lack of process flow. First, let’s break down what’s going on with the principal’s approach:
While this is alright when the problem rarely occurs. But at one point once it occurs frequently enough the system will start to feel repetitive and people will end up solving the same problem over and over again.
Instead, the school can consider creating a system such as below:
While the principal might still end up solving most of the problems by herself. This time the difference is that she can have a repository of SOPs where she can hopefully refer to other teachers in the future and where they can handle it as well. Doing so not only reduces the firefighting but also unifies how the school handle specific situations.
One common example is school bullying where each teacher handle the situation slightly differently which often causes student to feel unfair as they feel the treatment is different. If there’s a system to unify how schools handle bullying then it can reduce the chance of feeling unfair.