Do you have a checklist

Do you have a checklist that you use to review your SOW before you release them?

#SalesforcePartners have been reaching out to me to assess their sales-delivery processes because they’ve been having delivery issues where projects have been consistently turning RED.

Most of the time it’s because of sub-par scoping that includes:
🚩 didn’t ask the right questions
🚩 didn’t understand the answers properly
🚩 made too many assumptions and didn’t validate them
🚩allowed unconscious bias to seep into requirements
🚩 non-rigorous documentation practices, e.g. vague user stories, poorly written acceptance criteria, etc

This lends itself to badly written Statement of Works as well.

Having a checklist helps avoid potential legal disputes when projects go south:
⬜ Have you avoided dangerous words and phrases (like best practice, best endeavours etc?
⬜ Is the functional, non-functional and technical scope clear?
⬜ Are our responsibilities clear and unambiguous?
⬜ Are our deliverables defined clearly?
⬜ Are acceptance criteria defined, objective, measurable and under our control?
⬜ Are client obliations unambiuous?
⬜ Are our dependencies on client sub-contractors defined as client obligations
etc etc etc.

These are just a few items that have caught out SO MANY partners on so many projects.

There is an art to doing Discoveries properly, and part of it is ensuring clear language in gathering requirements and making the promises in the Statement of Work.

What else might you add to the contract/SOW checklist?
What might have prevented the horror projects you’ve been on??

#OnThePeiroll
#ProjectManagement