Understand Statements of Work

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Describe best practices when drafting a statement of work.
Identify how a statement of work helps a project succeed.

Best Practices Make Business Better

Salesforce consultants use statements of work in their practice all the time. In this module, we build on the great work they already do by sharing insights and recommendations to create a best practice statement of work (SOW).

The SOW Defined

So, what’s a best practice SOW?

It’s a legal document. It’s the legal agreement between you and your customer.
It establishes a baseline. Changes from the SOW require a formal change request.
It defines what is going to be done, when, and who is going to do the work.
It’s done together. It requires multiple conversations throughout the sales process.

Another way of thinking about a best practice SOW is to define what it isn’t.

It’s not:

Marketing materials
General and open to interpretation
Unclear on roles and responsibilities
Put together quickly from a template downloaded from the internet

You Are Here: SOW

The SOW is the final phase of the implementation sales process. In this process, the consultant and the customer work together to identify the specific tasks needed to accomplish the project. It includes several phases. Let's take a look at each one.

Implementation Sales Process

Phase	The consultant...	In order to...
1. Discovery	Talks with their customer stakeholders to identify what they want to do and why they want to do it.	Learn the customer’s business, products, and the business value of the project to prepare a rough order of magnitude.
2. Rough order of magnitude	Identifies the services, the personnel required to provide the services, and a range of costs to make it all happen.	Set the customer’s expectations and determine the project’s next steps.
3. Proposal	Creates a more detailed overview of what they want to do for the customer, with a more precise estimate of the costs.	Demonstrate their understanding, build their customer’s confidence, and confirm they’re on the right track.
4. SOW	Maps out project-specific activities, timelines, costs, and deliverables.*	Define the responsibilities and work agreements between all parties, including what work will be done, by whom, how, when, and for how much.

*Deliverables are items done for a customer as part of a contractual obligation.

A game board with four icons for discovery, rough order of magnitude, proposal, and SOW. A marker is placed on SOW.

Going through each phase of the implementation sales process is important to create both a strong SOW and a successful project.

Meet Sue and RhodesSports

To illustrate how a best practice SOW helps projects succeed, let’s meet Sue, a consultant, and learn how she helped RhodesSports, an athletic outfitter. RhodesSports wanted to implement Salesforce to accomplish three strategic initiatives.

Expand into more retail stores.
Improve its operations.
Achieve better marketing results.

After doing the implementation discovery, defining a rough order of magnitude, and submitting a proposal, Sue drafts the initial SOW. In it, she identifies all the required functionality to achieve the athletic outfitter’s strategic initiatives. In total, the SOW comes to US$300,000. At the next working session, the RhodesSports team asks what they can do to get the estimate closer to US$250,000.

After reviewing Sue’s detailed SOW, RhodesSports decides to raise its budget to US$275,000, reduce its scope to just two of the strategic initiatives, and do some of the work in-house.

In the end, the RhodesSports project is successful because Sue followed the implementation sales process, carefully prepared the SOW, and had honest conversations with her customer.

Sue presents SOW to the customer. The customer redlines the document. Sue updates and the customer signs the final document.

This scenario perfectly illustrates what a best practice SOW does.

Raises difficult conversations before the project starts. This sets a precedent of honest and up-front communication.
Builds a common understanding between the partner and customer. This explains to all parties what they’re responsible for and when.
Demonstrates the partner’s expertise in understanding the amount of effort required for each deliverable, so the customer trusts the partner.
Avoids ambiguity by clearly outlining the outcomes and the ways to achieve them.

Now that you know the importance and definition of a best practice SOW, let’s learn how to make one.

Quiz Scenario

Pauline is a consultant who is working with Ursa Major Solar to implement its Salesforce products. She completed the first three phases of the implementation sales process. She’s now ready to share her best practice SOW with Ursa Major Solar.