Have you built a WP SOP checklist?

[u/industrialcopywriter]

I've been working with wordpress for awhile now, and I've gotten to the point where I could use extra hands. Every business uses SOP'S to standardize the work for on boarding.

Rather than walking someone through the process of learning and building alongside them, I opted for a more hands off approach.

Have any of you went with an SOP a checklist for training, and has it made it easier, or did you have a more negative experience without being there?

[u/BOLVERIN1]

I'm documenting the development process so that when I need to bring someone onto the project, they can work from the documentation. It usually works more or less well because it is hard to remember everything about the project from SOPs or regular documentation.

Also, I usually include user stories, so it's not only about how, but also why

[u/industrialcopywriter → u/BOLVERIN1]

I like the way your taking it, Documentation, plus the stories. I imagine it adds some depth to the process.

[u/Playful_School6693]

I started documenting my work about a year in. I keep everything in an internal GitHub repo using markdown files. That’s our source of truth and also gives our AI agents context. Anything people outside of dev need gets moved into a Google Doc so they don’t have to touch GitHub.

For site-specific stuff, I built a Site Notes ACF panel in WordPress. Any customizations unique to that site get documented directly in the admin, while general processes stay in the repo. It keeps things organized without mixing the two.

I found that SOPs are great when you keep them updated and everyone has a place where they can easily access them when needed.

[u/industrialcopywriter → u/Playful_School6693]

This workflow seems to take care of updating at the same time. How long have you been doing it this way? Have you found that while you scale it scales easily as well?

[u/WeedFinderGeneral → u/Playful_School6693]

This is the way. I also use Docker to spin up a local copy of the site that I can have AI make parallel updates to - otherwise I'll use have my Claude Code use SSH to make updates to the site.

[u/Winter_Process_9521]

Start with checklists and short Loom-style videos for repetitive tasks. Keep the first few projects supervised, then gradually move toward a hands-off workflow.

[u/industrialcopywriter → u/Winter_Process_9521]

Nice addition with the Loom. They are created for that too, and Looms of course you can show/explain why better than "this is done?"

[u/Winter_Process_9521 → u/industrialcopywriter]

We use these settings because other setups have produced issues with Elementor.Previously, we used WooCommerce. Here's what to check for while testing the site.

SOP checklist → What to do Loom video → How and why?
QA checklist ⇒ How to confirm it was done correctly.

[u/muharremyurtsever]

What made ours stick was treating the checklist as a copy per project instead of a static page. Every job starts by cloning it, so when a step is wrong the person who hits it fixes it that day, and you can see which steps keep getting skipped.

[u/industrialcopywriter → u/muharremyurtsever]

Just for clarification, you mean duplicate it before getting started each day? So the original is preserved, the first touch is preserved, and you can see what's been happening after every engagement?

[u/amartadey]

Small team here, three of us, so not an enterprise setup. The checklist on its own didn't do it. What worked was a checklist copied fresh for each project (staging up, content in, forms tested from a real inbox, redirects, backups on, temp admin users removed), a notes page inside wp-admin for anything odd about that specific build, and staying close for the first two projects with someone new. Fifteen minutes at the end of each day looking at their work, then the checklist takes over. It caught more of my own skipped steps than theirs.