Workshop

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Hour 6
The SOAP Method: Subjective Data, Objective Data,
Analysis, and Plan
I hope you’ve liked all the writing involved in the last hour, because the method of troubleshooting in
this hour involves a great deal more of it. Treating a complex problem usually involves a lot of notetaking,
because you have to fill in the gaps where your understanding of the problem is incomplete. Up
until now, you’ve treated problems the way you treat a multiple-choice test—with change analysis,
divisive reasoning, and matching. Now, we’re talking about a fill-in-the-blank test, and it gets a little bit
harder; this is the hour where you have to wade through the subjective, match it up with the objective,
analyze your data, and plan on what to do next. In other words, this is the hour you want to save for the
tough problems.
Doctor Network
First, a little bit about the SOAP method. I first encountered the SOAP method while I was deciding not
to be a doctor like my father. Although I had absolutely no interest in sticking needles into people,
hanging around my father in his office taught me a lot about troubleshooting. In a sense, medicine is
much harder than computing—there are hardly any standards, the designer never released the data sheets
(much less the full documentation), and the device you’re trying to troubleshoot can sue you if you make
a mistake. The medical profession has come up with all sorts of diagnostic tricks—we as network
troubleshooters have a great deal to learn from the medical profession.
One of those diagnostic techniques is the SOAP method of note-taking. On their patients’ charts, some
doctors write down on separate lines the letters S, O, A, and P, standing for Subjective, Objective,
Analysis, and Plan, respectively. Therefore, if I went to see the doctor about my stomach, he might write:
S: Patient reports stomach pain; ate hot chicken wings last night; extra work lately.
O: Palpation reveals tenderness in upper right quadrant.
A: Suspect acute gastritis.
P: Treat with antacid x 5 days, bland diet, follow up in 5 days to assess condition.
The subjective is what I say to the doctor, the objective is what the doctor sees, the analysis is what he
deduces from his additional questions and reasoning, and the plan is what he will do to try to treat the
problem, plus the next step. Doctors are used to not being able to get a black-and-white answer; however,