The Statement of Work
Anyone who has worked in a professional services environment, especially consulting or at an agency, has an appreciation for the importance of the “Statement of Work” (SOW). The SOW is the thing that means the work has been won. Getting a signed SOW is the final indicator that all the work to impress, convince, cajole, and understand a client was worth it and they have chosen you. When the SOW is signed it is a meaningful and important invent in the life of the team and the start or continuance of the most important thing in professional services – a client relationship.
In the last 9 years of my professional life I have been involved in the development, writing, rewriting, reviewing, presenting countless times. These important documents come in all shapes and sizes and are used in various ways within different companies. One thing I have noticed they all have in common is that it sets the tone for how things will be done.
I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about what makes for a good statement of work. This seems like a rather dull topic but as I have considered it more I am realizing it is an essential element in the client relationship no matter what the approach to it is.
On some teams the SOW is the letter of the law. They are detailed and specific and are used to manage, reject, accept and arbitrate every aspect of delivery of the project or solution. This can be very effective and sometime absolutely essential to a teams ability to be successful or handle a challenging and demanding client. Other times the SOW is more of statement of intent and is used to set the high level direction and guidelines for how we will work together over a period of time. In these cases the initial commitment and agreements are made the SOW is hardly references again. This approach can also be valuable and allows for teams to respond to changes in the relationship or approach without having to figure everything out a head of time. Which approach is used is often reflective of the nature of the work and the people delivering the work.
In the last few weeks I have been involved in at least five different engagements that all had very different approaches to the SOW. Of course, since this is generally part of a binding and legal document there are certain things that absolutely must be in these documents. Thos are not the things I have been thinking about. I have been thinking about how the specific approach to the statement of work and what is init or not impacts how the client themselves behave and how the team themselves behave. Just as important as the document itself is the teams view of this document and their understanding of what it means and how it should be used. On each of the projects I have been involved with I have seen how the approach and understanding of the document has both been a critical tool in helping the relationship or has been the constant source of pain in the relationship.
Here are some examples.
1. Directional statements of work
a. Scope is vague and open ended
b. It is critical to have strong managers who can handle the ambiguity with the team and the client
c. It is critical that a strong working relationship exists with the client
2. Detailed statements of work
a. Can be useful in being explicit when someone does not hold up their bargain or changes their mind
b. Can be absolutely damaging when something is missing or is vague
c. Useful when dealing with historically challenging clients
Several key takeaways..
1. No one approach is superior. The right approach for a given situation must be informed by the nature of the work, the nature of how a team wants the relationship to work, and who is going to be running the project.
2. It is critical everyone involved in the project understand not only the content of the statement of work but the goal of the statement of work and how the team will use it.
3. While they are certainly not the most important,exciting or rewarding part of doing professional services work well, carelessness in approaching and thinking about this document is bound to create challenges and problems at some point in the project.
At my current job we are successfully blending together many different disciplines of work into a single solution for our clients. This is allowing us to create significant and unique value for our clients. However, this approach implicitly brings with it challenges both for us and our clients on how we approach our working agreements as reflected in the statement of work. Creative aspects of our work need open-endedness and freedom and implementation work need rigor and specificity. Blending all of that into a single document that sets the foundation for the success or demise of a relationship is a daunting task. Whatever approach is taken there is one thing that I believe must always happen or you are set up from the beginning for endless frustrations and challenges. Everyone needs to be on the same page about what it means to the team and to the client.
