Statement of Work Template

Introduction/Background

The Statement of Work (SOW) is a document which describes the scope of work required to complete a specific project. It is a formal document and must be agreed upon by all parties involved. In order to be effective, the SOW must contain an appropriate level of detail so all parties clearly understand what work is required, the duration of the work involved, what the deliverables are, and what is acceptable. This section should provide a general description of the project as well as highlight the project’s background and what is to be gained by the project. As the SOW often accompanies a request for proposal (RFP), the SOW introduction and background is necessary for bidding vendors to familiarize their organizations with the project.

Smith Consulting Group (SCG) has recently approved the Website Redesign Project in support of its strategic plan to enhance marketing and customer service. In order to provide more timely feedback to prospective clients and improved customer interaction, the Website Redesign Project will focus on building a content rich website which provides a simplified and more user-friendly approach for existing and potential clients. It is imperative that SGC utilizes its web site as a platform for communicating new developments, client testimonials, recent news, and other industry specific information. SGC also realizes the importance of working with clients to develop tailored consulting solutions which the new web site will allow the ability to do. In order to accomplish this, SGC seeks to outsource the design, testing, implementation, and training for the new website. SGC anticipates that its new website will move the company forward in its multi-tiered approach to winning new clients and capturing additional market share.

Scope of Work

This section of the Statement of Work should provide a brief statement of what you expect to accomplish as a result of this scope of work. While specific deliverables and tasks will be presented in the Work Requirements section, this section should highlight what is and is not included in the scope of the project in broader terms.

The scope of work for the Website Redesign Project includes all planning, execution, implementation, and training for a new public-facing internet site for SCG. The selected vendor will be responsible for the design of the new website based on feedback to be provided by SCG. Each stage of the project will require approval from SCG management before moving on to the next stage. The selected vendor must ensure it has adequate resources for designing, building, testing, and implementing the new web site and is staffed for the training of SGC personnel as well. Specific deliverables and milestones will be listed in the Work Requirements and Schedules and Milestones sections of this SOW.

Not included in the scope of work for this project is any work on SCG’s internal intranet site.

Period of Performance

This portion of the Statement of Work should define the time period over which the project will occur. The timeframe for the project can be pre-determined or based on a completion date to coincide with some external requirement (i.e. new Government regulation). It is important to define the period of performance since this is usually a variable in the project’s cost. Additionally, if there are delays in a project and it will not be completed within the defined period of performance, a contract modification may be required and the costs of the project will increase as well.

The period of performance for the Website Redesign Project is one year (365 days) beginning on 2 March 20xx through 3 March 20xx. All work must be scheduled to complete within this timeframe. Any modifications or extensions will be requested through SCG and vendor contracting officers for review and discussion.

Place of Performance

This section of the Statement of Work should describe where the work will be performed by the vendor. In some cases the vendor may perform all or some of its work on site at the customer’s location. This is usually dependent on the type of industry or work being performed. It is important to define this in case the customer requires the vendor to work at the customer’s site and to clarify any equipment and/or work space that will be provided.

The selected vendor for the Website Redesign project will perform a majority of the work at its own facility. The vendor will be required to meet at SCG’s facility once per week (day and time TBD) for a weekly status meeting. Additionally, all project gate reviews will be held at SCG’s facility and attended by the vendor. SCG will provide and arrange for meeting spaces within its facility for all required vendor meetings. Once the project reaches the training phase, all training will be conducted at SCG’s facility.

Work Requirements

Here the Statement of Work should include a description of the actual tasks which the project will require. This should include what tasks need to be completed in order for successful completion of this project/contract. As with all other portions of the SOW, every effort should be made to include as much detail as possible.

As part of the Website Redesign Project the vendor will be responsible for performing tasks throughout various stages of this project. The following is a list of these tasks which will result in the successful completion of this project:

Kickoff:

• Vendor will create and present detailed project plan including schedule, WBS, testing plan, implementation plan, training plan, and transition plan
• Vendor will present project plan to SCG for review and approval

Design Phase:

• Work with SCG to gather requirements and establish metrics
• Create site design based on collected requirements
• Develop site design proposal for SCG review and approval
• Present written status at weekly meeting

Build Phase:

• Vendor will complete all coding for approved site design
• Vendor will provide SCG with a detailed testing plan
• Vendor will include all content provided by SCG on redesigned web site
• Vendor will conduct testing in both their iLab as well as in a limited beta release
• Vendor will resolve any coding and site issues identified in testing
• Vendor will compile a testing report to present to SCG for review/approval
• Present written status at weekly meeting

Implementation Phase:

• Vendor will implement the newly redesigned web site on SCG servers
• Vendor will begin providing 24×7 web site support at this point forward until the end of the period of performance
• Present written status at weekly meeting

Training Phase:

• Vendor will provide training in accordance with approved training plan provided in the kickoff
• Present written status at weekly meeting

Project Handoff/Closure:

• Vendor will provide SCG with all documentation in accordance with the approved project plan
• Vendor will present project closure report to SCG for review and approval
• Vendor will complete the project requirements checklist showing that all project tasks have been completed
• Vendor will conclude 24×7 web support at 11:59pm on the final day of the period of performance
• Present written status at weekly meeting

Schedule/Milestones

This part of the Statement of Work should define the schedule of deliverables and milestones for this project. Since the SOW often accompanies the RFP for the project, it is imperative that all milestones, tasks, and schedule information are as accurate as possible since vendors will need to consider these items in their proposals.

The below list consists of the initial milestones identified for the Website Redesign Project:

Acceptance Criteria

This section of the Statement of Work defines how the customer will accept the deliverables resulting from this SOW. The acceptance of deliverables must be clearly defined and understood by all parties. This section should include a description of how both parties will know when work is acceptable, how it will be accepted, and who is authorized to accept the work.

For the Website Redesign Project the acceptance of all deliverables will reside with SCG’s Vice President of Marketing. The VP of Marketing will maintain a small team of three advisors in order to ensure the completeness of each stage of the project and that the scope of work has been met. Once a project phase is completed and the vendor provides their report/presentation for review and approval, the VP of Marketing will either sign off on the approval for the next phase to begin, or reply to the vendor, in writing, advising what tasks must still be accomplished.

Once all project tasks have been completed, the project will enter the handoff/closure stage. During this stage of the project, the vendor will provide their project closure report and project task checklist to SCG’s VP of Marketing. The acceptance of this documentation by SCG’s VP of Marketing will acknowledge acceptance of all project deliverables and that the vendor has met all assigned tasks.

Any discrepancies involving completion of project tasks or disagreement between SCG and the chosen vendor will be referred to both organizations’ contracting offices for review and discussion.

Other Requirements

Any special requirements, such as security requirements (personnel with security clearance and what level, badges, etc.) should be described in this section of the Sttement of Work. There should also be a description of any IT access restrictions/requirements or system downtime/maintenance if required.

All vendor project team members will submit security forms to SCG for clearance and access badges to the facility. All vendor programmers and quality control team members will be granted access to SCG servers and all necessary IT functions. They will also be given temporary SGC accounts which are to be used only for work pertaining to the Website Redesign Project. Upon completion of the project these accounts will be closed.

All programming and testing will be done in the iLab. A network outage will be scheduled for the implementation phase of this project. Prior to the network outage, all servers will be backed up and a notification will be distributed to all users.