# How to Use Four-Way SOP: Connecting Business Results, Processes, People, and Daily Work - Author: Andrew David W.Y. - Source: https://yutengfei.com/en/journal/four-way-sop-practical-guide/ - Version: R1 - Published: 2026-11-04 - Revised: 2026-11-04 - Content status: Full text published - Content type: Methods (methods) - Research topics: Stakeholder Capital Governance (stakeholder-governance) - Ecosystem perspectives: Operations & Management Ecosystem (operations) · Resource Ecosystem (resource) · Customer Ecosystem (customer) ## Use this resource **Purpose**: Start with one path to business results, then clarify processes, resources and partners, role responsibilities, and daily actions. A hypothetical brand design company shows how Four-Way SOP can help startups test revenue paths, find and develop people, and preserve working methods for collaboration between people and AI. **Conditions for use**: Check that the subject, objective and constraints fit the task. Confirm any conditions that the article does not specify. **Methods · Steps, inputs and completion criteria** **Evidence and validation limits**: The example shows how to map a four-way SOP. To assess its use, check whether downstream teams can use the deliverable and whether customer and economic outcomes change. No separate external-validation result is recorded for this article. Publication does not establish effectiveness; check the evidence, assumptions and limits in the text. This is a readable, citable knowledge resource, not an installed Skill. When using it with AI, retain its sources and limits and review the output. ## Full article How does a business produce results? What business processes does it need? Who should it hire? What should those people do each day? These questions can be considered together. When I first studied Four-Way SOP, I wanted to connect them. Start by finding the core process through which a business produces results. Then follow that process to clarify its business processes, functional tasks, and specific actions, one level at a time. An established business can use this approach to examine its current operations. A business just starting out can use it to analyze several possible ways to earn revenue and decide what to try first. I divide these relationships into four directions: **Performance SOP, Business Process SOP, Functional Task SOP, and Action SOP.** SOP stands for Standard Operating Procedure. Here, I use four directions to connect business results with specific work. Looking downward from performance asks, “What work do we need to organize to achieve this result?” Looking upward from an action asks, “What result does this work ultimately support?” For the full structure, you can first read the [introduction to the Four-Way SOP model](https://yutengfei.com/en/journal/four-way-sop/). In this article, I want to explain more concretely how a business can use it. The figure fits the reading width; you can also open it full-size. [![Four-Way SOP in practice: move from performance to business processes, functional tasks and actions to clarify revenue paths, resources and partners, responsibilities and people, and everyday work; check upward using practical feedback.](https://yutengfei.com/journal/four-way-sop-practical-guide/materials/en/01-practice-map.svg)](https://yutengfei.com/journal/four-way-sop-practical-guide/materials/en/01-practice-map.svg) Figure 1: Start with one performance path, develop the necessary work at each level, then check upward using practical feedback. The four levels describe scopes of work, not organizational tiers. Retained methods can support people working with AI, with authorization, configuration and output verification still required. [Open full-size figure ↗](https://yutengfei.com/journal/four-way-sop-practical-guide/materials/en/01-practice-map.svg)[Download editable SVG ↓](https://yutengfei.com/journal/four-way-sop-practical-guide/materials/en/01-practice-map.svg) ## 1\. First, find the core process that produces business results When mapping SOPs, I would first ask: Who are this business's customers? What does it provide? Why are customers willing to pay? How does the business deliver the work and earn a return? Once these questions are clear, the main line of the Performance SOP begins to take shape. In my early research, I used a simplified example: finding customers, preparing quotations, signing contracts, and collecting payment. I placed these stages in the Performance SOP because they are closely connected with customers and affect whether a transaction can be completed. In practice, requirements confirmation, delivery, acceptance, and other necessary conditions need to be added for the business concerned. **The processes in a Performance SOP should consist of the key factors needed for successful business results.** I will use a hypothetical brand design company throughout this article. One of its project businesses could initially be mapped as follows: Find customers with a need → Confirm requirements and service scope → Submit a proposal and quotation → Confirm the engagement and payment arrangements → Deliver the design and complete acceptance → Settle payment as agreed. This is the main line of the business. Each stage needs an outcome that can be clearly described. “Finding a customer” requires checking whether the customer is a suitable one. “Confirming requirements” should leave a scope both parties understand. “Completing the design” requires checking whether the delivery meets the agreement. Once this line is mapped, managers can more easily see where to look. If there are many prospects but few engagements, examine requirements, proposals, and quotations. If projects have been signed but cannot be delivered, examine production and delivery. If work has been delivered but payment has not arrived, look at acceptance and settlement conditions. The business also needs to define the results it is observing. Contract signings, revenue, gross profit, and cash received have different measurement bases and should not be mixed together. A business may have several Performance SOPs for different products, services, or customer types. ## 2\. Startups can first map several possible revenue paths A business without stable operations can also use this method. At the beginning, founders often have several ideas. Our hypothetical brand design company might offer project design, ongoing content services, or design training. These businesses need different customers, resources, and work arrangements. It can first map a simplified Performance SOP for each: - Project design: find a project customer, clarify scope and price, agree on the engagement, deliver the design, and complete acceptance and settlement. - Ongoing services: find customers with recurring needs, clarify the services and fee arrangements for each period, agree on the engagement, deliver on schedule, complete acceptance and settlement, gather feedback, and then decide whether to continue. - Design training: identify learners and their learning needs, design the course, recruit and enroll learners and collect fees, deliver the teaching, then check learning outcomes and further needs. The business can then compare them. Which path is closest to its existing resources? Which stage can it not yet complete? Are customers actually willing to pay? What needs to be invested at the outset? Which conditions need to be tested first? The discussion can then move from “There are many things we could do” to “Which business should we get working first?” For a business that has not yet been tried, I would treat its Performance SOP as a proposal to test. Choose a path that can be attempted with the conditions available, speak with real customers, deliver on a small scale, and adjust based on feedback. Mapping helps expose questions early. Actual business activity tests the judgments behind it. ## 3\. Clear Performance SOPs make business processes and resources easier to identify A Performance SOP tells us which key results need to be achieved. Next, we need to ask which business processes will produce them. For example, “complete the design delivery” may look like a single stage in the Performance SOP. Behind it, however, may be requirements research, creative design, content preparation, production checks, and customer communication. Together, these processes produce something the customer can use. Organizing them is the job of the Business Process SOP. **A Business Process SOP focuses on how to create value and pass it to the next stage.** Requirements research should provide a usable basis for design. Design work should deliver a proposal that meets the requirements. Production checks should ensure that the files can actually be used. When one step ends, the next should have something it can work with. Once the business processes are clear, the resources needed become more specific. Customer research needs interviewing and analytical capabilities. Design needs design skills, materials, and tools. Photography, printing, and other production may need suitable equipment, techniques, and supply capabilities. Following the business process allows us to assess, item by item, which resources we already have, which we must add, and which are suitable for a partner to provide. There are then concrete questions to ask potential partners. Which part of the capability can they provide? What result will they deliver? What standards will guide the collaboration? How will their work connect with ours? A business process may be completed by an internal team or involve external partners. First clarify the value needed and the working relationships, then decide which organization should take on the work. This makes it easier to find the resources actually required. ## 4\. Once the business processes are clear, clarify functional tasks and role responsibilities With a Business Process SOP in place, we can identify the tasks within it and develop Functional Task SOPs. In a design business, for example, someone needs to confirm requirements, someone needs to produce the design, someone needs to check production files, and someone needs to organize delivery. For each task, we can clarify its inputs, responsibilities, and outputs. Here, “functional task” means one piece of work that a position or role needs to complete. One position can undertake several functional tasks, and a business process may require several positions to work together. Putting these tasks together allows us to analyze role responsibilities. Why does this role exist? What work does it normally handle? Who does it work with? What capabilities does it need? This is useful for finding, assessing, and developing people. When hiring, requirements can be based on real tasks. Do we need someone who can turn customer requirements into a usable design brief, someone who can produce a particular kind of design, or someone who can coordinate delivery by several people? Different needs call for different searches. When assessing people, we can review their work, ask about their process, and use practical exercises tied to the relevant tasks. This helps us understand how they approach a problem, use resources, and complete a delivery. People with the same job title may be able to undertake very different work. When developing people, we can also identify specific gaps. Were requirements not clarified? Is the person unfamiliar with the tools? Were delivery checks insufficient? Locating a gap in tasks and actions allows us to arrange suitable practice and check progress through later work. Staffing can change with the business. At the startup stage, one person may fill several roles. As the business grows, roles can be separated according to workload, specialist requirements, and collaboration needs. Four-Way SOP helps us explain what work is needed, then judge what people and organizational arrangements it calls for. ## 5\. Develop functional tasks into clear daily actions A Functional Task SOP clarifies what needs to be completed. An Action SOP explains how to complete it. For example, “organize customer requirements” can be developed into: prepare interview questions, record the information the customer provides, check unresolved points, prepare a requirements statement, obtain confirmation, and pass it to the design stage. Where omissions or errors are likely, the standards also need to be clear. What information is required? Which version of the source material should be used? How do we judge whether the work is ready for handover? Who should resolve missing information? We can then put this work back into everyday schedules and consider four task attributes: - **Routine tasks**: regular work carried out continually, such as checking customer inquiries and maintaining project records. - **Periodic tasks**: work carried out at agreed intervals, such as preparing weekly project updates or reviewing monthly service performance. - **SOP-triggered tasks**: work arising when an SOP reaches an agreed stage and the relevant conditions are met, such as starting design after requirements are confirmed or preparing delivery after a proposal is approved. - **Tasks received from others**: matters requested or assigned by someone else, such as a customer requesting a change or a collaborator asking for support. “Received from others,” called “passive” in the Chinese classification, describes how a task arrives. It does not judge whether the person is proactive. The attributes can also overlap. A customer change request can be received from someone else and also trigger a change-handling process. With these points clear, a person in a role knows what to do regularly, what to do when the time comes, what to do when a particular condition arises, and how to handle matters received from others. The applicable SOPs, tools, delivery standards, and working relationships can then be organized into a role handbook. Newcomers have a place to start learning, experienced people have a shared reference, and handovers become easier. ## 6\. SOPs also give AI resources for understanding the business's work This organization of work is valuable for people and for AI. If we tell AI only “Help me prepare a proposal,” much of the business context is missing. Who is the customer? Which stage should the proposal move forward? What information is needed? Who will use the output? Which conditions cannot be decided without authorization? All of this may still be unclear. Four-Way SOP connects that context. The Performance SOP explains the purpose of the work. The Business Process SOP explains how work is coordinated. The Functional Task SOP explains the specific task. The Action SOP explains the method and standards. Take organizing requirements. We can provide AI with information authorized for this use, an applicable requirements template, and checking criteria. It can help organize the information, flag gaps, and prepare a draft for the responsible person to review. The process should also identify what must be confirmed with the customer and which decisions involve external commitments. SOPs that have been used in practice can be further organized into knowledge, task instructions, and Skills that AI can draw on. Alongside successful methods, actual exceptions, reasons for failure, and records of adjustments are worth keeping. I also see a longer-term value. As AI capabilities continue to develop, the working methods a business records today will become important resources for AI to understand and participate in actual business activity. They contain the purpose, relationships, conditions, and experience behind the work, rather than just a sequence of steps. Giving files to AI does not mean it has learned the work or that the process can run automatically. What it can take on still depends on tool capabilities, permissions, and checks of the results. But the clearer these foundations are, the stronger the basis for later collaboration between people and AI. ## Start with one line of business whose results you can observe To put this into practice, take a sheet of paper and write down one Performance SOP. Choose one key stage and develop the business processes it needs. Then identify tasks and responsibilities within those processes. Finally, describe the actions that need to be repeated, their standards, and the conditions under which the tasks arise. Run it through real business activity, then look back. Were the key results achieved? Were resources sufficient? Where did one person's work fail to connect with another's? Which actions need changing? Which work, although originally planned, was not actually needed? When results fall short, leave room to return to the higher levels and reconsider. Customer needs, products, prices, resources, and the external environment can all change. Process records help locate problems, but the specific causes still need to be investigated. My early _Methodology for Mapping and Designing SOPs_ already included trials, feedback, and iteration in the development process. Looking back today, I still think this step matters. Once a process has been written down, it needs to keep becoming more useful through actual work. **How a business produces results, how its processes create value, which resources and people it needs, and how each person works every day can all be clarified step by step through the same set of relationships.** That is what I hope Four-Way SOP can help businesses do. Start with one line of business, understand how to make it work, and keep the methods that prove useful. ## Research basis and further reading This article draws on the four-way model, role responsibilities, work classifications, trials, and iteration in my early research material, _Methodology for Mapping and Designing SOPs_. It reworks those ideas alongside my current thinking on startups, resource collaboration, talent development, and AI applications. The brand design company is a hypothetical example used to explain the method, not a record of verified business results. Terms such as “Work SOP” in the early material are standardized here as “Action SOP.” The task attributes follow the current categories of routine, periodic, SOP-triggered, and received from others. - [Introduction to the Four-Way SOP model](https://yutengfei.com/en/journal/four-way-sop/) - [From role responsibility analysis to a role handbook](https://yutengfei.com/en/journal/co-builder-role-handbook/) - [How role tasks enter a workflow](https://yutengfei.com/en/journal/role-task-entry/) - [From SOP to Skill](https://yutengfei.com/en/journal/sop-to-ai-skill/) ## Related reading - [Four-Way SOP: Connecting Performance, Business Processes, Functional Tasks, and Actions](https://yutengfei.com/en/journal/four-way-sop/) - [We followed the SOP. Why aren’t we seeing business results?](https://yutengfei.com/en/journal/sop-business-outcome-diagnosis/) [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Applies to original text unless otherwise stated; excludes third-party materials. Downloading or machine reading does not extend the existing license or separately authorize derivatives, commercial use or model training. [AI usage guide](https://yutengfei.com/en/journal/ai/)