The Statement of Work (SOW) is the one document that is often overlooked or underutilized but is critical to the successful delivery of a project, is the Statement of Work (SOW). The SOW is the supporting contractual document, which documents "what" is to be provided to a client and what is required to deliver a service or product successfully. Without a detailed SOW, you will be managing a project with an unknown objective. This, in turn, makes it difficult to determine what is to be accomplished, when you're finished, and what method will be used for measuring the success of both the PM and the project. Without a detailed SOW, you also have no baseline against which to measure progress or change. 

In Rick Page's book, Hope Is Not a Strategy, he notes that "successful organizations make habits of things others don't like to do, or don't find time to do." Drafting quality SOWs falls into this category. Lack of an established process and framework, or inexperience in drafting and applying an SOW to a project, can be very frustrating and time-consuming. When organizations or individuals shy away from developing the most important document on a project simply because it may take time, effort, and planning, they risk the project and possibly the organization.

This is where the M2 Consulting Group Ltd. can help. Mike Martin is the author of one of the first books ever written on how to draft and apply the SOW to private sector projects - Delivering Project Excellence with the Statement of Work. M2 can provide you with the senior-level expertise necessary to help your organization develop and implement a customized SOW specific to the types of projects you typically perform. According to research and actual project work, having a detailed, quality SOW in place can save an organization literally millions of dollars during the life of a project. We can also help you draft the complete Request for Proposal (RFP), where the SOW would typically reside when it's used in a competitive bidding process. 

To find out how the M2 Consulting Group, Ltd can help your organization develop and implement quality SOWs and RFPs, please fill out the form under the Contact tab or send an e-mail to info@m2consultinggroup.com