A Statement of Work (SOW) is the default, standard contract vehicle for professional services. Most mature organizations that offer services already have a template or preferred format they work off of. Sometimes, a potential client will require that you use their SOW template. If you're new to services, there are lots of great resources out there for how to write and structure a SOW:
If you didn't bother visiting each of those links, here's the key takeaway; typically all recommended SOW templates follow a very similar format:
Some preamble or "objective". The "why" behind this SOW
The actual "scope" or activities that will be performed in order to complete the objective
A schedule or timeline can be at the activity level or in its own section
Key assumptions and/or client responsibilities can be at the activity level or in their own section
Deliverables as byproducts of the scope and any acceptance criteria can be at the activity level or in their own section
Costs and payment schedule
Term, conditions, legalese, etc. Things like "how change orders work"
Signature section
Appendices
As you can see, there is a lot that goes into a SOW. Step 2 (scope) is the most critical and time consuming. Step 2 is the reason that organizations wouldn't want just anyone writing SOWs. The objective can be easily written and provided by the salesperson who sourced the opportunity with the client. Most other steps are purely derived from the details and tasks in Step 2. And the rest in boilerplate language.
Creating an Accurate SOW
Since we know that everything of criticality stems off of the scope (Step 2), it becomes obvious that to have an accurate SOW, you need to be crystal clear on the activity details in the scope. So when writing an SOW, the one section that must be left to the professionals on the services team is the actual scope of work. The best way to fine tune this accuracy is to look for repeated patterns of work that are contracted to clients. Take these repeated activities and continuously update the details for future use in new statements of work. That way, as you learn things from performing a service time and time again, you can ensure you're properly identifying the level of effort and specifics for future proposals. These continuously updates activities should form an "activity library".
Creating SOWs Fast
If you're able to devise a process and system for leveraging the repeated use of pre-defined activities (activity library), you're on your way to creating SOWs fast. Writing fast and accurate statements of work is easier than it seems. It all comes down to having a reliable activity library and sales to services partnership. As the services team becomes increasingly disciplined in adding to and updating their activity library, it allows the sales team to confidently assemble a SOW without feeling like they may be missing some key details. And as the sales team is allowed to build SOWs from pre-approved activity templates in the library, it enables the services leadership team to be freed up from the time consuming writing, oversight, and approval tasks needed for each new contract.
Building SOWs from an activity library isn't a new concept. Many organizations do this today with a combination of spreadsheets, wikis, share-drives, LMS systems, etc. It's why we built Ridare. The key difference is that with Ridare, there's finally an all-in-one software solution for making SOW creation fast and accurate. And it adds needed governance and efficiencies to the process. To learn more, please reach out for more information. Or keep the conversation going by commenting below with your own best practices for SOW writing.
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