A GUIDELINE TO DEVELOPING
STANDARD OPERATING GUIDELINES

Introduction:

Standard Operating Procedures

(SOP’s), Standard Operating Guidelines (SOG’s), Emergency Operating Guidelines (EOG’s), or whatever you choose to call the tool used to provide direction, is essential to the structure of a well organized Emergency Services Department or Organization.
 

Creating the Tool:

For the purpose of this document, the term SOG (standard operating guidelines) will be used. Creation of SOG’s is by no means an easy undertaking, and can overwhelm the capabilities of a singular person charged with this responsibility. With this in mind, delegation becomes a tool to get the job done and also provides members with a sense of belonging and accomplishment. An important key point to the development of such guidelines is, although time lines are essential to ensure the job is being completed, time lines should not become the driving force or motivation in getting the job done. It is important that each policy be well thought out, put to paper and critiqued to ensure it’s viability in the overall scope of policy development.

• PROCEDURE ~ defined by Webster as "a particular way of accomplishing something" or a "series of steps followed in a regular definite order."

( This leaves little room to change or adapt to a situation)

• GUIDELINE ~ defined by Webster as "an indication or outline of policy or conduct".

Standard Operating Guidelines outline the procedure of present day, but also provide the basis to build on improvements in the Department or Organization’s daily operations. Successful fireground command and firefighting activities require the integrated efforts of the entire team which is, in turn, organized and mobilized under a strong central plan. While the actions of individuals on the fireground are important, firefighting operations are done collectively. To accomplish this, everyone needs to know the rules of the game and must have access to these "rules" in order to stay functional as a "team."

SOG’s are characterized by being:

• In written form. Everyone then can read and understand.
• Official. Outlines the "official" game plan which represents the Organizations policies.
• Applied in all situations. Develops a set of regular habits.
• Enforced. Used ALL the time to reinforce the game plan.
• Integrated into the model accepted and used by the Department’s Management

In the development of such guidelines, it is important to realize that each of the guidelines comes from a brain storming session of ideas that will outline the activities of any given situation. The ideas should be recorded in no particular order on a black board or flip chart and when done, each of the ideas should be critiqued. The critique should look at:

• Does the idea or suggestion require a formal policy or guideline? If no, disregard for now, but don’t necessarily dismiss it completely. It may fit in a later scenario.
• If the idea or suggestion does require a formal policy or guideline order, write one.
• Keep the SOG as simple and as short as possible. It is much easier to remember than a long, convoluted statement that does nothing more than confuse the average reader.

A simple method in which to write a procedural guideline is to answer the What?, the Who?, the When?, the Where?, the How? and the Why?. This can be easily accomplished using a very straight forward and simple approach, such as the following.

On a piece of paper, blackboard or flipchart create two columns. One column asks the questions, and the second column provides the answers.

 

Here is this simple box chart when an idea is interposed with the questions. Suppose the suggestion was made to have a policy regarding "member responses to alarms in their personal vehicles". A simple SOG could be constructed to look like this:

 

Now, cover up the left side of the table and read just what is on the right side in italics. It should in a lot of the cases read as a sentence, and therefore be sufficient enough to form one of your many SOG’s!

Now that the SOG is written, a critique can be done by asking the following questions:

• Does the procedure address a legitimate concern?
• Does the procedure open the need for subsidiary policies or directives?
• Does the procedure give clear, concise information?
• Does the procedure establish a standard course of action?
• Does the procedure address the scope of the Emergency Services Department?

Each SOG, besides having a title, should have a number assigned to it, the implementation date, a sunset date (expiry date) and noted dates of revision. This all works toward being and staying current.

National Fire Protection Association Standard 1201, "The Standard for Developing Fire Protection Services for the Public"

Fire Command, BRUNACINI, Alan V., Author ISBN 0-87765-284-8

Emergency Operating Guidelines for Incident Commanders, First Edition; HEWITT, William J., Author ISBN 0-968 0901-0-9

IFSTA Essentials of Fire Fighting, third edition, Fire Company Tactics, pp 417-430

Internet (suggest framing "Standard Operating Procedures" "Fire Department")