I help companies refine what they want to achieve with technology/services and find vendors (internal or external) to help them build the technology and related processes.

In the past 3 months, I’ve been asked to share some of the tools I use when helping my clients develop a plan for successful technology projects. Two of the tools I use are a Statement of Work template and a Scoping template.

Scoping Template (Excel)
SOW Template (Word)

Developing a successful technology project plan involves many factors, but it really comes down to a few simple steps:

  1. The buyer describes what s/he wants to achieve. First, we talk about the problem or goal. Then, we talk about what life is like after the project is complete.
  2. The buyer works with me to fill out the Scoping template (link above). We’ll spend a few hours and sometimes days doing this across all impacted business units, then we prioritize the items.
  3. I fill out the Statement of Work template (link above) and place a draft watermark on it.
  4. I send the two documents to companies qualified to produce the work after they sign an NDA.
  5. The documents are edited for clarity and to answer questions from the vendors.
  6. A vendor or two will be selected to interview with the buyer.
  7. One vendor is matched with the buyer and we draft contracts.

Using these two documents allows for both parties to understand the project and reduces the likelihood of most technical project failures at the outset of the project.

Good luck with yours!