WWH3R: A Six-Step Standard Operating Procedure for Doing Things

In this report, we present a standard operating procedure (SOP) called WWH3R for doing things,
which consists of six steps: What, Why, How, Record, Result, Reference.

This SOP can be applied to many fields such as running projects, resolving issues,
making reports, writing papers, and learning new things, etc.

Step 1 - W: What?

As first step, when you start working, you need to know what you are going to do, e.g. What is the specifications?
What is the issue? What I am going to present? and so on.
It is obviously the most important step to know what to do in the very beginning, as it is actually the direction.

Step 2 - W: Why?

The second step is to ask why. Why I need to do so? Why it is the case? Why it happened? etc.
Knowing why you do this can be beneficial in some cases because you are not blind before stuck at some problems.

Step 3 - H: How?

The third step is know how. e.g. how to design? how to implement? how to check?
This is a very important step before delving into detailed actions.

Step 4 - R: Record

The Record step is to record key point or details of your actions all through your operating process,
including but not limited to: operations, issues, questions, or understandings, etc.

Step 5 - R: Result

The Result is simple, such as announcing with pass or fail result in the end based on the criterion designed in ``How’’ step.

Step 6 - R: Reference

Finally, it is always recommended to list down key documents you refer to through the whole process.