planning

What is a Statement of Work (SOW)

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What is a Statement of Work

A Statement of Work (SOW) is a companion document to the services agreement that consists of a narrative description of the products or services to be supplied. A statement of work is a necessity as it refines the understanding between the parties as to what must be delivered and the terms and conditions to be applied. A Statement of Work is in effect a contract between the parties for the service delivery or of a commercial understanding of how to work together in a joint activity with a client.

The typical objectives of the statement of work are to enable the contractor to clearly understand the requirements and needs of the customer organization. You wouldn’t enter into a contract with a builder to make over your house on a smile and a handshake (I hope) and neither should you enter into a commercial relations to delivery a multimillion dollar project for a website development contract either. To be clear on this don’t trust a handshake or a verbal promise always document your understanding – it is far better to spend time arguing about what must be done before the work has started. If you’ve taken the proper steps to write a thorough statement of work then no surprises should occur on delivery when what was ordered is actually seen for the first time.

The Statement of Work spells out the scope of work to be done, the deliverables, the responsibilities of each party, and any fees for services to be rendered. The SOW is created once a client feels comfortable and ready to proceed with the project or activity and documents the joint understanding of what must be achieved at each stage. The statement of work (SOW) is a management product that formally documents the products to be delivered and the associated work units to be performed under the contract.

Typical contents are:

  • Aim and objectives of the activity
  • The scope of the activity and any limitations
  • Assumptions and constraints
  • Project plan and approach
  • Governance and review points including the project management process to be used to report progress
  • Deliverables to be produced including any dependencies
  • Due dates for deliverables
  • How deliverables are approved and what quality procedures are in place.
  • The commercial considerations

Requirement of a good Statement of Work

Normally a statement of work is employed when a simpler needs requirement document cannot be used and it must describe what must be accomplished in terms of the client’s requirements. Stakeholder needs, wants, and expectations are also analyzed and evaluated before being converted into requirements. There may be items such as, reporting requirements, commercial restrictions, market research, anti-competition agreements, geographic scope etc. that must be included. It must outline all applicable quality systems including quality review processes and acceptance procedures to be used, as well as the definition of the type and extent of control that is to be exercised on subcontractors should these prove necessary. On this latter point a sub-contractor must sign up to the overall conditions and the party concerned must warrant that this is the case. Overall a SOW identifies the requirements to be satisfied not the way they must be achieved leaving the parties free to use their own expertise and skill to achieve the desired result.

Creating a statement of work is not an easy task and can be time consuming but is well worth the effort. Do not trust to partner rhetoric that suggests leaving the difficult points to later never rely on such terms ‘spirit of agreement’ – it always ends in trouble. If a statement of work is too ambiguous, it can lead to misinterpretation and future problems and a major falling out. The failure write down expectations and then to properly execute a SOW is often the reason parties end up in a dispute and the major reason why this process must be well thought through and executed.

Quality assurance policy – this is a high level statement of aims and objectives

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An assurance policy is a high level statement of objectives and approaches that are further worked out in the Quality Plan – shown here in this post is an example of the main clauses in the policy statement typically signed off by senior management.

AnyCo’s Management Ltd.’s quality assurance policy is based on principles and values provided for in the Company Mission, strategy and goals.
Quality Management System (QMS) creation is a major strategic direction of the business activities. The QMS is regarded as a useful tool for creation and management of effective business processes. The system formation will result in provision of services of consistently high quality, fully meeting customers’ expectations.

The company pursues the following goals in the field of quality assurance:
1. Strict compliance of the company’s services with international, national, and corporate standards and requirements.
2. Professional and technical level of the services must correspond to or exceed that of the leading enterprises and companies operating in the UK market.
3. Responsibility to customers for the quality of the services rendered.
4. Cost efficiency of the services as compared with other companies operating in the market.
5. Development and implementation of new services that fully satisfy our customers’ needs.
6. Continuous monitoring of complaints and claims from customers, and aim to maintain these at zero.
7. Positioning of the company as employing professional staff educated to at least Masters level, and providing services of high quality.

The strategy for achieving the goals is the following:
1. Focus on the process management model and continuous improvement of the company services (in accordance with the market requirements).
2. The QMS development, implementation, and maintenance in conformity with ISO 9001 international standards. Certification to 9001 will be applied for by 2008.
3. Satisfaction of customers’ requirements to all services. Fulfilment of the customers’ requirements within the shortest periods of time, ensuring highest quality. The services can be provided under Service Level Agreements (SLA).
4. Understanding of the customer needs, their present and future specific requirements.
5. Continuous cooperation with customers in order to understand their needs.
6. Transparency – customers obtain access to information on the quality of the services.
7. Priority of quality issues in “personnel – technology – organization” chain.
8. Strict quality assurance procedures at all stages of the services life cycle, well-defined personnel responsibility for quality assurance.
9. Primary focus on prevention of a possible decrease in quality rather than on measures to restore the quality level.
10. Consistent training of all personnel in the sphere of quality, each employee’s participation in services improvement, rewards for quality improvement.

Main Content for a Training and Development Policy

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Training and Development Policy

‘Your company name’ believes in the importance of lifelong learning for all directors, staff and associates, and in the need for continued professional development (CPD). Crosslight works towards continual ‘reflexive practitioner’ processes, to enhance the learning environment for all involved in our projects.
The company will employ and contract from a pool of highly qualified, experienced and well-respected professionals who already have high levels of education (to at least Masters level with the exception of administrative staff). In particular, staff and associates are selected for their highly developed and practiced skills of written and oral communication, professional and ethical conduct, analysis and synthesis of a wide variety of information, and research and evaluation leading to sound practical advice for our clients. Professional development seeks to build on these skills to assist team members and individual researchers or consultants to apply these skills to satisfy our clients needs.
The training and development policy is as follows.
Policy
The training will be designed to enable associates and staff, where appropriate, to:

  • participate in accessible and relevant training and development which is economical in the use of their time;
  • experience learning methods which take account of individual learning styles;
  • participate in training which takes due account of prevailing legislation;
  • participate fully in training activities that will be relevant to all participants irrespective of gender, age, ethnicity or disability;
  • hone and apply core skills essential for all of the company’s methods.
  • What can staff and associates expect of the company?

All staff and associates can expect the company to:

  • provide induction to the work of Crosslight, its mission, standards and values;
  • train him/her in specialist skills needed to carry out or facilitate research or consultancy work; this includes effective use of the electronic communications system set up to support projects;
  • assist him/her to develop sufficient confidence to undertake or facilitate their projects;
  • hold regular reflexive practitioner meetings, coaching sessions and lead-researcher/consultant observations and follow-up reflection discussions.
  • work together in teams whenever possible and have regular team meetings focusing on development of skills;
  • provide training reference material to use after completion of their training;
  • provide the company’s documents they need to conduct the project to which they are assigned;
  • add them to Crosslight’s mailing list for receipt of relevant new publications and information about the company’s work;
  • provide them with opportunities to contribute to the evaluation of the methods which they use on Crosslight projects.

Benefits for clients and other organisations include
Adherence to this policy should provide the following benefits:

  • confidence that Crosslight team researchers and consultants are properly trained to undertake research and consultancy work professionally, and confidently;
  • consistent application of chosen method;
  • consistency in quality, ethical processes and benefit realisation.

Related documents: Quality Policy, Health & Safety Policy, Diversity Policy.