Statement of work

A Statement of Work (SOW) is a document routinely employed in the field of project management. It defines project-specific activities, deliverables and timelines for a vendor providing services to the client. The SOW typically also includes detailed requirements and pricing, with standard regulatory and governance terms and conditions. It is often an important accompaniment to a Master Services Agreement or Request for Proposal (RFP).

Many formats and styles of Statement of Work document templates have been specialized for the hardware or software solutions described in the Request for Proposal. Many companies create their own customized version of SOWs that are specialized or generalized to accommodate typical requests and proposals they receive.

Note that in many cases the Statement of Work is a binding contract.Master Service Agreements or Consultant/Training Service agreements postpone certain work-specific contractual components that are addressed in individual Statements of Work. The Master Services Agreement serves as a master contract governing the terms over, potentially multiple SOWs.

A statement of work typically addresses these subjects.

For US government service contracts, the use of SOWs remains strong, although Statements of Objectives (SOOs) and Performance Work Statements (PWSs) have become increasingly popular due to their emphasis on performance-based concepts such as desired service outcomes and performance standards. SOWs are typically used when the task is well-known and can be described in specific terms. They may be preferred when the government does not desire innovative approaches or considers any deviation in contractor processes a risk. Whereas SOOs establish high-level outcomes and objectives for performance and PWSs emphasize outcomes, desired results and objectives at a more detailed and measurable level, SOWs provide explicit statements of work direction for the contractor or offeror to follow.

SOWs are typically replete with "contractor shall" statements of mandatory compliance (for example, "This task shall be performed in accordance with Agency xyz Directive, dated mm/dd/yyyy"). In practice, SOWs can also be found to contain references to desired performance outcomes, performance standards, and metrics, thus blurring their distinction between SOOs and PWSs. Aside from good practice, there is little government policy guidance that emphatically prescribes how and when to use SOWs versus SOOs or PWSs. Whereas the FAR defines PWS in Part 2 Definitions, and references SOOs and PWSs in Part 37.6 Performance Based Acquisition, SOWs are not addressed.

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