Statement of Work (SOW) Stoppers

| 797 Comments | 180systems

The SOW is a key document from your vendor that can make or break the implementation. The vendors will do their best to reduce their risk by limiting scope to a high level list, assuming that you will follow best practices, and making a lot of other assumptions about you doing work that you don’t know or understand the effort to complete.

As the vendor risks go down, the customer risks go up.  We recommend the following:

  • Scope is tied to the requirements in the RFP which need to be specific
  • Best practices should only be applied to processes that are considered basic.  It should not be tied to ones that allow a company to differentiate themselves from the competition or address critical success factors (what an organization must do well in order to be successful strategically). You should limit the best practices to a few basic processes such as accounts receivable and accounts payable.
  • Ensure you understand what is involved in your roles and responsibilities. Many organizations don’t have the experience or qualifications to do some of the tasks that may be assigned to them without a lot of help from the vendors. An example of this is developing to-be business process documentation.  If you don’t have a resource on your team with the skill set to do this, you may be setting yourself up for a vendor change order.

A good way to limit scope for both the vendor and the customer is by arranging a “paid-for” business needs analysis (BNA) or discovery process prior to signing any long-term contracts. This should not delay the implementation process as it is work that would need to be done anyway. It should also not be a full-blown design phase by the vendors. It should be enough work for the vendors to define scope clearly and provide a fixed or not-to-exceed fee to do the implementation. It will also involve deciding what to do with all the requirements that are not met out-of-the-box by the vendors which include customization or custom reports, 3rd party modules, changing the process and workarounds.

The vendors would rather close the deal without doing the discovery if possible but we think this is short-sighted. In the end, the vendors don’t want unhappy customers and taking this extra step will help reduce the risks of unexpected and costly surprises during the implementation.

797 thoughts on “Statement of Work (SOW) Stoppers”

  8. Can you be more specific about the content of your article? After reading it, I still have some doubts. Hope you can help me.

  263. So, I checked out pussy888game and gotta say, the graphics are pretty slick! Good variety of games and a decent overall experience. Worth a look if you’re into these games. Just sayin’! Have at the games and have fun! -> pussy888game

  677. Spending time is very boring if you are alone, if you are finding a partner for party, club or a single bedroom time then at Ruhi Juise you can get no.1 partner you ever never saw in you life. Here you will get college call girls in Mumbai, housewife, airhostess, vip models and much more, just visit our website, explore call girls and just drop us a message or call to delivery her at your doorstep. She also want to enjoy her time with you, even she is excited to spend her time with you.

  678. Enjoying time with a beautiful partner is a big dream of every gentleman, that’s why we have top class service providers at very limited price with next level satisfying services without any delivery charges near your location like in Bangalore. Explore our top class escorts in Bangalore and select a very beautiful lady for your desire. Actually she want you love too so they gives her 100%, she also want to enjoy her time with some strangers like.

  732. GemstoneRO Servers is one of the best Ragnarok Online private servers in 2026, offering two free RO servers: Renewal with EP21 Age of Heroes, chapter 1, chapter2 4th jobs, Doram, latest skills and mid rates, and Loki Pre-Renewal with classic gameplay, custom quests, unique gear and 100x rates. Play on PC or Android with an active global community, low-latency proxies, weekly updates and no paytowin. Join GemstoneRO and enjoy Ragnarok Online your way.

  739. GemstoneRO Servers is one of the best Ragnarok Online private servers in 2026, offering two free RO servers: Renewal with EP21 Age of Heroes, chapter 1, chapter2 4th jobs, Doram, latest skills and mid rates, and Loki Pre-Renewal with classic gameplay, custom quests, unique gear and 100x rates. Play on PC or Android with an active global community, low-latency proxies, weekly updates and no paytowin. Join GemstoneRO and enjoy Ragnarok Online your way.

  777. Woah! I’m really digging the template/theme of this blog. It’s simple, yet effective. A lot of times it’s tough to get that “perfect balance” between usability and visual appearance. I must say that you’ve done a fantastic job with this. In addition, the blog loads super fast for me on Internet explorer. Exceptional Blog!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Name