From the Arsenal: SOPs can reveal problems.

Story Of The Day: Bob was walking me through a bunch of docs.

There were A LOT of them.
He had an SOP for every content process they did.

To be honest there were so many I even lost track listening.
Excel sheets, word docs, Canva slides...
The list went on.

After he went over them I asked:
​Does the team use these?
Do you have one for this process?

and he said:
“Yes we have them, and it's shit… but it’s good.”
​
At first it sounded contradictory.
So I asked him what he meant.

what he meant was this:

The resources technically existed.
The checklists were there.
The steps were documented all by him over years.

On paper, it looked like a perfect SOPs.
But everyone on the team knew the truth.
They weren’t really following it.
Bob knew it too.

They knew parts of it could be better.
They knew there were gaps.
They knew they needed the job.

So no one was fixing it.
And no one was saying much about it either.

So what Bob is saying is:
​"Yes I have SOPs I poured hours and hour into,
but....it's not helping."

After trying all the usual fixes:

Maybe we need better SOPs.
Maybe we need more people.
Maybe we need to train the team longer.

Nothing seemed to solve the slowdown.
Because the real problem was how the work moved.

The team wasn’t really following the SOPs.
People were defaulting to AI to keep up with the workload.
No one fully understands how or why it mattered.

So the work kept drifting outside the process.

But something important did happen.

Documentation didn’t fix the pipeline.
It simply shows Bob where the pipes are clogged.

Where work paused.
Where ownership was unclear.
Where decisions stalled.

And that’s the moment most teams don’t pay attention to.

Takeaways: A 20-page SOP is a paperweight if no one is following it.

How to Apply It Today:

1. Run the Pipes: Take one real project and walk it through with the team step by step.
2. Observe the Flow: Study the friction, not the document. Where does it clog?
3. Refine the Flow: Decide whether you need to remove, add, or change those moments.

Pro tip: When you identify those moments jot something down like this " The work stopped here because ____"

As promised: dialing in your video workflows 1% at a time.

Want help launching, scaling and upgrading video operating systems?

That’s what we do inside DenimStitch.

Find the clog, fix the clog.
-David

P.S. Here's me at the gun range yesterday in Augusta. But If you want to see if your current pipeline needs plumbing, I'm opening up 3 slots to do an hour work session reply "CAPACITY" (ESPECIALLY IF SOPs AREN'T WORKING). I'll get back to you with some open dates next week. Happy Friday.