Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Samad Aidane
Table of Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 4
Overview ..................................................................................................................................... 4 What is a Statement of Work (SOW)? ............................................................................................ 4 What are the Benefits of a High-Quality SOW? ................................................................................ 5 Why is the SOW so Important? ...................................................................................................... 6 SOW Writing Process .................................................................................................................... 7
Step 4: Conduct Market Research ........................................................................................ 20 Step 5: Compile and Categorize the Work to be Done ........................................................... 21 Step 7: Finalize the SOW .................................................................................................... 25 Final Thoughts .................................................................................................................. 26
Samad Aidane
Introduction
Success is the result of good judgment; good judgment is a result of experience; experience is often the result of bad judgment.
Tony Robbins
Overview
As the global economy slows down and executives move to trim costs and improve efficiency, organizations are required to do more with less under increased competitive pressure. To keep up, organizations increasingly turn to external vendors to expand their own capabilities and gain a competitive advantage. Effective vendor management is fast becoming a competitive advantage. In the future, we will only see this trend continue as globalization and competitive pressures increase. The first step in ensuring successful partnerships with vendors is a well-written Statement of Work (SOW). A well-written SOW can prevent disagreement, misunderstanding, and potential disputes between you and your vendors. A well-written SOW resolves many conflicts about the expectations of the work to be performed, before they even arise. This book breaks down the process of developing effective SOWs into seven steps. It will discuss several key elements that should be contained in a SOW and address important ideas to consider when writing it.
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such as software developers, testers, business analysts, lawyers, accountants, purchasing specialists, and others. Therefore, make sure your SOW is written in language that can be easily understood by technical and non-technical readers during contract negotiations, as well as throughout the project lifecycle. Preparation of an effective SOW requires both an understanding of what needs to be done and how success will be measured. It should accurately describe: what work will be done and by whom, when it will be done, how the quality of the end product or service will be measured, and how much it will cost.
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Tip: Most vendors have a sales team and a delivery team. These
two groups are assessed and rewarded differently. The sales team is rewarded based on how much they sell. The delivery team is rewarded based on how much actual profits they earn. These two teams often dont talk to each other until the contract with the client is signed. Too often, thats the first time the delivery team is engaged and learns about what the sales team promised the client. Dont negotiate the SOW with only the vendors sales team. Guerrilla Project Management
Samad Aidane Copyright 2010 Page 6
Samad Aidane
Insist that the vendors project manager, who is usually from the delivery team, be at the negotiation table. This way, the delivery team has a chance to provide its input before the contract is signed. While this may not eliminate all surprises down the road, it will at least prevent some of them.
The seven steps, in detail, are: Step 1: Plan Identify the objective of the SOW, assemble your team, and develop a preliminary timeline for completing the SOW. Step 2: Formatting the SOW Decide how you will organize your SOW so you can assign research and drafting tasks to the appropriate members of your team. Step 3: Collect and Analyze Requirements Identify all the requirements and deliverables that the SOW will address. Step 4: Conduct Market Research
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Find out whats available in the market so you know what to ask for and how much it should cost. Step 5: Compile and Categorize the Work to be done Organize tasks, deliverables, and milestones in a meaningful order taking into account the needed resources, dependencies, and constraints. Step 6: Write the SOW Draft versions of the SOW and circulate them for review and feedback. Step 7: Finalize the SOW Complete the SOW development process by seeing that all the required authorities within your organization and the vendors approve the final version.
Step 1: Plan
Establish a Preliminary Scope Statement
Start the SOW writing process by identifying and capturing in a document the highlevel objectives or purpose of the SOW. At this point, you will not have enough information, so make sure that you collect all the different ideas that the stakeholders have about the outcome of the project. As you talk to your stakeholders, ask questions whose answers will give you a sense of the magnitude of the work to be performed. It is critical to also define what work is not part of the SOW. This information will eventually be refined and included in the Scope of Work section of the SOW document, which will be covered later in this document. You should also collect background information that will help you clarify the needs that the project must satisfy. If your organization uses business cases or other documents to justify projects and secure funding, then review these documents for background information. At this stage, you should have the following information collected:
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An introduction or background, or both, is preferred. The background information should be limited to only the information relevant to the purpose of the SOW. A brief statement of what the SOW should cover.
The ideal team should include members of the departments or divisions who will be impacted by the outcome of the project, subject matter experts, and supporting departments such as accounting, procurement, and legal.
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The team is typically composed of three main entities: The SOW development team leader (most likely you) who has the authority and responsibility for developing the SOW. The functional and technical subject matter experts who will provide domain knowledge to describe the work to be done and its acceptance criteria. Other supporting subject matter experts in areas such as legal, accounting, and purchasing, who will provide the necessary review and guidance.
It is critical that you identify anyone who has final review and approval authority over the final vendor SOW. Obtain their requirement at this stage so they dont surprise or delay you down the road.
For roles and responsibilities, create a table such as the following and agree on who will be responsible for what:
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Responsibilities Meet with SOW team leader frequently to monitor progress, give guidance, and provide liaison to customers. Review the SOW at planned review points and provide input and guidance. Review final SOW and provide final comments before final approval. Meet with the SOW team as needed to provide guidance and support for its efforts.
Project Manager
Oversee the SOW team. Assign tasks to team members as needed. Monitor progress of the SOW team. Coordinate review by stakeholders and management. Conduct team meetings as needed to review work completed, assign new tasks, and respond to questions from the team.
Contract Management
Assist team in the development of the SOW. Coordinate the legal and purchasing departments review of the SOW. Review final SOW.
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Samad Aidane
One of the tasks challenging you as a project manager is encouraging stakeholders to review the SOW and provide input in a timely manner. Another issue you will encounter is that people will wait until the end of the SOW writing process to give you critical feedback that you needed earlier. This tends to cause more delays, as issues that were supposed to be settled earlier are constantly being re-opened.
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To avoid these delays, schedule multiple reviews at various milestones during the SOW development process. I recommend at least three reviews: an initial draft, a second draft, and a final version. This may seem like too many reviews. The benefit of this approach is that, at each review, you will get a chance to bring up and resolve issues, instead of waiting until the last moment. The other benefit is that you will have a chance to expose showstoppers as early as possible, rather than wait for them to throw up a surprising roadblock at the end.
Tip: the individuals on your SOW team will still have to do their
day job, in addition to participating on the SOW team. Make sure to get their commitment to the SOW effort and adjust the SOW schedule accordingly.
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Samad Aidane
This section includes all the tasks to be performed under the contract with the vendor. The tasks description should provide all the details so any vendor can understand the requirements, the methodology, and the outcomes and deliverables under the task. Each task description should include deliverables and tangible end results that are expected from each task. It should also describe the acceptance criteria that will be used to measure the quality of the outcome and deem the task completed. 7) Schedules/Milestones While a schedule may not be finalized during the SOW writing phase, an initial highlevel schedule should be included to set the expectations for both the vendor and client organization about the duration of the project and its key milestone dates. 8) Project Management Include in this section what you require from the vendor so you can properly monitor their performance and the overall progress of the project. Include items such as: Weekly Meetings Weekly Status Report Monthly Progress Report Project Management Team Meetings Management of Risks, Issues, and Action Items
9) References If previous sections need further details for clarity or brevity, use this section for that purpose and for all other information that does not logically fit into previous sections.
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Samad Aidane
Develop detailed project plan or iteration plans if you using Agile. Conduct fit/gap analysis or business process review tasks if applicable.
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Samad Aidane
Speaking of warranties, an acceptance period should be added after the Go Live to make sure that the final solution actually works beyond the immediate hours or days after the Go Live. Installation instructions should be required if the vendor and client teams share responsibility for installation. They will also be needed after the project is completed for ongoing maintenance and support by your technical staff. Agree and document in the SOW who is responsible for documenting these instructions. Specify how the project deliverables will be transitioned to the normal maintenance and support operations. Include any training and documentation that will be provided to your support resources.
How will the project status be communicated and how often? What types of meetings are required? How will the meetings be held (on-site, virtual)? How will payment be made and how often? Are the payments dependent on acceptance of specific deliverables or milestones? What type of warranty is included in the scope? Are there any security, regulatory compliance, or industry standards compliance requirements? What staff will be available from both your organization and the vendor, and what skill level is required? Is work to be done on-site at your premises or at vendor location?
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You will discover: which vendors provide the service or product you plan to acquire, usual service and warranty terms, the standard terms and conditions for delivery of this service or product, typical current market prices and discount schedules, and reliability issues and areas of risk in acquiring the service or product.
The information you gain from market research will enable you to ask the right questions and include appropriate information so your vendors can respond more effectively. As a result, you will be able to evaluate offers more accurately. So now that you know how important market research is, how do you go about conducting it? I recommend the following approaches: Meet with vendors one-on-one.
Ask vendors for their references and check their track record.
Attend industry conferences and interact with vendors. Issue a Request for Information, which can be a draft description of the requirements, and ask interested vendors for their input to help you clarify your requirements. Ask for input from organizations similar to yours that have recent experience acquiring similar products or services. Review existing reports from market research companies such as Gartner and Forrester.
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In this step, you will take all the information you collected in previous steps and organize then into a comprehensive set of tasks, deliverables, and acceptance criteria. In general, when specifying tasks, be as clear and specific as possible on what you expect to be accomplished by a task and what actual results are expected. This is the most challenging step in the process because this is where all the information you collected so far comes together.
Compile all the work to be done using these steps: Draft a scope statement that describes the objectives or purpose for engaging the vendor. Describe the magnitude and boundaries of the responsibilities for both your organization and the vendor. Identify all the tasks to be performed by both the vendor and your organization to complete the project. Describe the work in terms of what work needs to be done not how the work will be done. Organize tasks so that similar or related tasks are grouped together. Divide the work into main tasks and sub-tasks. Organize tasks based on the chronological sequence in which they will be performed. Other options are to separate tasks based on their subject areas or in the order of the phases in which they will be executed. It really does not matter what order you select as long as you are consistent.
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Clarify the relationships among all the tasks. Identify dependencies and required resources to complete tasks. Include any regulatory compliance or licensing requirements or constraints that may impact executing a task. Describe the actual deliverables for each task. Examples of deliverables are: training workshop, design document, and software. A task is considered completed when its deliverable is approved. Describe how each deliverable will be inspected and measured before you will accept it. Describe the acceptable criteria for each deliverable. Examples of acceptance criteria are: passing an acceptance test, review or approval for a design document. Indicate the specific time that a deliverable is required during the project or state a specific frequency of delivery. An example would that a schedule is due 10 days after signing the SOW or that a status report is due every two weeks.
Tip: This all seems like a lot of work. It is O.K to start from a vendors template SOW, so you dont re-invent the wheel, as long as you modify it to fit your needs. Never use the vendors initial SOW as your final version.
Samad Aidane
Use clear, understandable terms to describe the work to be done. Describe deliverables in concise, commonly used, easily understood, measurable terms. Do not include detailed procedures that dictate how the work is to be accomplished. Avoid rambling sentences, overlaps, duplication, and contradictions. Use generic (non-proprietary) terminology and references in describing your requirements. Spell out all acronyms. Provide definitions for any technical or unique terms used within your SOW. Be careful how you use the words will and shall, as they have specific legal meanings within a SOW.
Avoid reasonable, best practices, joint efforts and other ambiguous language. Once you have finished writing your SOW, go back and review it to ensure that all the tasks and deliverables are: specific measurable attainable relevant timely
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sections can be circulated as soon as they are written and ready for review. This will speed up the final review.
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Is the scope statement complete and accurate? Is each task broken down into all the sub-tasks necessary for it to be completed? Does each task and deliverable have a completion or acceptance criteria? Are all the items that you and or your vendor need to supply identified? Are the roles and responsibilities identified? Are all acronyms, abbreviations, and special terms clearly defined? Is the change management process, which allows future modification to the SOW, documented? Have all comments and recommendations from SOW reviews been addressed?
Final Thoughts
Lets agree that when you find yourself in conflict with your vendor, going to court is not always the best way to solve a dispute. A legal dispute can be very costly, timeconsuming, and extremely stressful. A clear and well-written SOW will help your organization and your vendors avoid much of the confusion and conflict that arise during any project. You will use it to settle disagreements over what work should or should not be included in the project, and to resolve quickly those differences and conflicts that are inevitable.
Samad Aidane
Most conflicts with vendors center on things that were promised but not delivered. Enter this process safely with the understanding that if disputed items are not clearly spelled out in the SOW then they are not part of the deal.
Thank You So Much! I hope youve enjoyed this eBook as much as I loved writing it for you. I cant thank you enough for your continued support of guerrillaprojectmanagement.com Blog. I appreciate each and every one of you for taking time out of your day to read this, and if you have an extra second, I would love to hear what you think about it. Please leave a comment at: http://www.guerrillaprojectmanagement.com/project-managersguide-to-writing-effective-statements-of-work If youd rather reach me in private, dont hesitate to shoot me an email at: samad@ guerrillaprojectmanagement.com I read each and every single comment and email. If you havent already, you can connect with me on Twitter (@samadaidane). Thanks again, and I wish you success on all your projects!