Lecture 4

Project Scope Management

SOW & Scope Statement
Instructor
Hamza Ejaz
 Food for Thought!

“Statement of Work (SOW)” and “Project Scope

Statement” are often confused.

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SOW Vs. Project Scope Statement
Statement of Work (SOW) : is also known as Project
Statement of Work (to distinguish with
Procurement Statement of Work) is a document
including the high level description of the intended
deliverables of the project.
Project Scope Statement: a document including
more details than Project Statement of Work on the
scope and deliverables of the project, major
assumptions and constraints are also added if
appropriate.

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 Confusion Persists!
From the PMOBK Guide definitions, it seems
that both Statement of Work and Project Scope
Statement are very similar as they both contains
the descriptions of the project deliverables.

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 Further Elaboration!
However, when researched in more depths, it
can be found that:
– Statement of Work (SOW) contains high
level information of the project deliverables
– Project Scope Statement contains more details of
the deliverables plus assumptions and constraints

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 Illustration
Statement of Work (SOW) contains at least the following
three elements:
– Organization strategic plan
– Business needs
– High level product scope

These are meant to provide an overarching direction for the

project only, NOT the full implementation details. The high
level product scope contained in the statement of work must
be further developed in order for all stakeholders and project
team members to really understand what are expected from
the project. This is where the Project Scope Statement comes
into play.

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 Illustration – Contd.
Project Scope Statement on the other hands includes lots of details for the
project (not necessarily include all of the following):
– objectives
– project scope
– product scope
– requirements
– boundaries
– deliverables
– acceptance criteria
– constraints
– assumptions
– milestones
– specifications
– configuration management requirements
– approval requirements & broad level cost estimation etc.

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 Illustration – Contd.
The Project Scope Statement may be elaborated
progressively over time when more details on
requirements and constraints are known during
the requirements collection and scope defining
processes.

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 Which Comes First?
These two terms are often confused in real-world
practice as project managers may use the two
terms interchangeably to refer to documentation
containing all the work to be done for the
project. But according to the PMBOK® Guide (as
the PMBOK® Guide is intended for medium to
large scale projects), the Statement of Work
(SOW) would only contain very high level scope
while the Project Scope Statement contains the full
details.

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 SOW Comes First!
Since the Statement of Work (SOW) contains a high level
description of the project scope while the Project Scope
Statement contains the lower level (more detailed)
description of the project scope, it can be easily inferred
that the Project Scope Statement is developed from the
contents of the Statement of Work (SOW). So the
following documents need to be developed in sequence:
– Project Statement of Work (SOW) – documenting the very
first ideas for the project
– Project Charter – formally authorizing the project and
project manager (= SOW + Business Case + Contract)
– Project Scope Statement – when the project manager is
collecting requirements and defining scope

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Questions?

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