How to write a statement of work from a discovery call

To write a statement of work from a discovery call, sort the notes under fixed headings on the same day, list what the call did not settle, ask the client for all of it in one message, and only then draft from your template and rate card. A director sets the estimate and the price and sends the document. Most of a statement of work is assembly, which an AI worker can do. The few lines that carry the judgement, how long the work will take and what you will charge, stay with the person who has to deliver it.

What is a statement of work, and when is it written?

The Association for Project Management defines a statement of work as an annex to the main body of a contract that defines the detail of deliverables, timescales and management procedures relevant to the contract. A discovery call ends with a client who wants to go ahead and a consultant with pages of notes, or a transcript. Between that and a signed engagement sits one document that says what will be built, by whom, by when and for how much. In a small IT consultancy or software house a director or project manager writes it, in the evening, starting from the last one that looked similar.

The steps, and who does each one today

1. Sort the notes under the headings. Do it the same day, while the call is still in your head. Today the director does it from memory when the document is written, perhaps a week on.

2. List the gaps. Whatever the call did not settle: who signs off on the client's side, which systems you will be given access to, what data is to be migrated, the date they need it by.

3. Ask once. One message to the client with every open question, not five over a fortnight.

4. Estimate. Days by role, for each deliverable. This is the director's or lead consultant's judgement.

5. Draft. The template, the rate card, the standard terms, the sorted notes and the estimate, put together.

6. Review, price and send. A director reads it as the client would, sets the price and sends it.

7. Record the signed version. It is the baseline every later change is measured against.

The headings that do the work

• Deliverables. The Association for Project Management defines a deliverable as a product or package of work that will be delivered to, and formally accepted by, a stakeholder. Write each one as a thing the client can receive, not an activity you will perform.

• Acceptance criteria. In the same glossary, the conditions that have to be achieved before a deliverable is accepted. Without them, "done" is a matter of opinion and the final invoice waits on it.

• Out of scope. What the client mentioned and you are not doing.

• Assumptions and what you need from the client. Assumptions are statements taken for granted as fact. Write them as facts that can turn out false: access granted by a date, one person with authority to approve, test data supplied.

• Team, timeline and price. Who, how many days, at what rate, whether the price is fixed or time and materials, and when each invoice is raised.

• How changes are handled. A change request is a request for formal approval of a change to the approved baseline. Say who can raise one, who approves it and that the extra days are agreed before they are worked.

If you change one thing tomorrow, make these headings your note-taking template for the call itself. A call run against the headings leaves fewer gaps than a document written against them afterwards.

What an AI worker can do with the notes

An AI worker can do the assembly. For this job it can take the notes or transcript of the discovery call and sort them under your headings, list what the call left open and draft the single message that asks the client for it, sent by the consultant or in wording you have approved, and remind by email if no answer comes. Once the lead consultant has given the estimate, it can build the statement of work in your template from your rate card and standard terms, mark every line it could not fill from them, and pass the draft to the director with the open points at the top. The writing up of the call is specified on our page for meeting follow-up and notes, and the drafting on quote and proposal preparation.

What stays with the director, and why

The estimate stays with the director or lead consultant, because only someone who has done the work knows what it takes. So do the price, any discount and any rate that is not on the rate card, because they are the firm's margin. The contract terms are for your director and your legal adviser. Where a master agreement exists, the statement of work refers to it and does not rewrite it. The decision to send is the director's too, because a statement of work commits the business. Later, whether a request falls inside the scope or becomes a change request is a commercial decision for the project manager or the account owner.

What to have ready before starting

• Your statement of work template and standard terms.

• The rate card, by role.

• Three or four past statements of work that you would be happy to see copied, and one that went wrong, with a note of why.

• The list of things you must know before you can estimate.

• How discovery calls are recorded, and that the client knows they are.

Our page for IT consultancies and software houses covers the back-office work around the statement of work, from timesheets before the invoice run to the support desk and status reports. Why it matters to how the firm grows is in how to scale an IT consultancy without hiring more staff.

The worker would turn each discovery call into a draft statement of work in your template, and your director would set the estimate and the price and decide when it goes. Talk to our agent about the next discovery call in your diary.