Statement of Work: What is it & How to Write it? (Template Included)

Did you know that a lack of clear goals accounts for 37% of project failures? Not defining the deliverables, timeline, and expected result could lead to disastrous results for your project. This could, in turn, hamper the overall reputation of your company.

In order to accomplish projects on time and deliver what is expected, smart project managers rely on documentation to make sense of the chaos and bring a systematic approach to project execution.

One of the important documents a project manager creates is a statement of work. The statement of work document lays the foundation for a project, making sure everyone is on the same page on project expectations and nuances.

Given the magnitude of its importance, a statement of work document is carefully crafted to include all minute details of the upcoming project. Since creating such a critical document can be daunting, we decided to help you out by creating a free, plug-and-play statement of work template.

But before we jump into our awesome template, let us first understand what exactly is a statement of work document and what to include in such documents. Read on…

What is a Statement of Work Document?

A statement of work helps ensure the success of a project by explaining how the project will get implemented, the risks involved, and the phases of the project along with milestones and deliverables.

An employee writing statement of work

This thorough breakdown helps stakeholders and team members understand the deliverables and timelines for the upcoming project, and what is expected of them.

Why is a Statement of Work Document Important?

Statement of work is an important document that helps all those involved in a project understand what’s at stake, the importance level of the project, risks involved, budgets, and a breakdown of what needs to be completed and when.

This document sets the expectations at the team and stakeholder level to keep each other accountable and ensure the project is a success. It helps avoid conflicts in a project and keeps confusion to a minimum.

What Should You Include in a Statement of Work Document?

The successful execution of a project depends mainly on the level of documentation done prior to its start. Thus, it’s important to make sure your statement of work documentation includes the following elements:

Project Summary: Provide a brief summary of what the project will entail.

Project Process: Explain the process that will be taken to complete the project.

Project Milestones: Add important project milestones and deliverables along with deadlines.

Overall Project Governance: Specify how the project will be governed. This can include details regarding who’s in charge, what is the status report expectations, etc.?

Terms and Conditions: Are there specific terms and conditions needed before the project begins?

General Assumptions: What assumptions and risks are there? What can be done to mitigate those risks? Write all the assumptions before beginning the project.

Phase Breakdown

Phase [n]: [Phase name]

Phase description
Deliverables and assumptions
Milestones + Schedule

Repeat for each phase…

Budget: Include the spreadsheet for the project’s budget.

Approvals – Add approval details (if any)

Now that you know the importance and elements of a statement of work document, it’s time to put that information to test by using a documentation tool like Bit.

Key Benefits of Creating Your Statement of Work Documentation on Bit.ai

To create a statement of work documents, you need a proficient tool that can help you create, share, and collaborate with stakeholders and get work done efficiently. This is where Bit comes in!

Bit serves as a central hub where collaborators, content, and communications can be accessed in one all-inclusive document. Project managers can use Bit to create a statement of work documents, collaborate with their team in real-time, and store all project assets in one place for easy and fast access.

Bit.ai: Document collaboration tool

Whether your team is creating a statement of work documents, project documentation, operational plan, release notes, roadmap, project charter, product requirements, API documentation, product launch marketing documents, pitch decks, business plan, SWOT analysis, competitive research, project management plan, etc. they can easily add spreadsheets, Slideshares, Google Slides, YouTube videos, PDFs, maps, charts, graphs, and more to your documents and make them visually stunning.

Simple, Clean UI: Bit has a minimal design aesthetic to it, allowing a newbie to quickly get on board with the platform. Even though the platform is feature-rich, it does a great job as to not overwhelm a new user and provides a systematic approach to work.

Organization of information: Organizational information is often scattered in cloud storage apps, emails, Slack channels, and more. Bit brings all your information in one place by allowing you to organize information in workspaces and folders. From documents to media files, Bit makes organizing data easier than ever.

Brand consistency: Focus on the content and let Bit help you with the design and formatting. Bit documents are completely responsive and look great on all devices. With amazing templates and themes, Bit docs provide you with the type of brand and design consistency that is unheard of in the documentation industry.

Smart search: Bit has a very robust search functionality that allows anyone to search and find any files, images, documents, etc. quickly and easily across all of their workspaces. Users can search their digital assets using keywords, titles, descriptions, or tags. They can even search for files based on their source (example: YouTube).

Media Integrations: Companies use an average of 34 SaaS apps! It’s no wonder why most of our time is spent hopping from one app to the next, looking for information. This is why Bit.ai integrates with over 100+ popular applications (YouTube, Typeform, LucidChart, Spotify, Google Drive, etc.) to help teams weave information in their documents beyond just text and images.

Recommended power links and files you can add to your statement of work template:

Web links
Google Sheets, OneDrive Excel, Airtable
GitHub
Social Media posts
YouTube, Vimeo
Draw.io, Lucidcharts
Sketchfab, Figma, Marvel
PDFs, PowerPoint in Google Drive/OneDrive

Sharing: Bit documents can be shared in a live state meaning that all changes that you make to the document will update in real-time. If you are sharing your documents with clients, they will always get your changes. You can even embed Bit documents on any website or blog.

Tons of other features: Bit has a plethora of amazing features like document tracking, cloud-upload, templates, and themes, document locking, document expiration, and much more, making it a well-rounded documentation tool.

Bit provides a common workplace for project members to collaborate, document, share their knowledge, brainstorm ideas, store digital assets, and innovate together. The best part is that this knowledge is safely secured in your workspaces and can be shared (or kept private) with anyone in your organization or the public!

Here are some of the main benefits of using Bit:

Collaborate in real-time
Interlink statement of work documents and other documents
Create fully responsive documents
Create a private statement of work documents only visible to yourself or your team
Track engagement on the shared statement of work documents with consultants, partners, etc.

Statement of Work Template

To make the process of creating your statement of work documentation easier, we have created a ready-made statement of work template for you! Check it out below:

How to Use Bit’s Statement of Work Template

The process of creating a statement of work document on Bit is insanely easy! Just follow these four simple steps to create your document quickly:

Step 1: Create a Bit Account

Go the home page of Bit.ai and click on Get Started for Free or Sign Up to get started. Enter your email address to sign up. Once in, you can create your personal profile.

Step 2: Create a Workspace

Workspaces are where the work gets done. Click on the ‘Create Workspace’ button on the right. A popup will show up prompting you to add a name for your new workspace.

You can create a workspace around a team, department, large project, client, partner, etc. Inside each workspace, you can create an unlimited amount of Bit documents and access your content library (storage area for all of your digital assets – web links, files, cloud files, rich embeds, etc.).

Step 3: Add Team Members

Bit allows your team members to collaborate in real-time and get work done. Collaboration starts at the workspace level.

You create private workspaces by default. However, you can invite others to join you inside of a workspace and collaborate together with the knowledge, projects, documents, and content inside of the workspace.

Step 4: Create Your Desired Document

Once you are in the workspace, click on the ‘Create New’ button. Select ‘From Template’ in the dropdown. A pop up will display allowing you to select a template from the gallery.

In the search box on the top left corner, you can search for the “statement of work template”. Once your desired template pops up, click on it and click on the “Use Template” button on the bottom right corner.

That’s it! Your statement of work document is ready for use!

🎥Watch this video to learn more👇

Over to you!

Fewer than a third of all projects were completed on time and budget over the past year. This is why project managers increasingly turn to documentation tools like Bit to manage their time, cost, and other critical resources associated with a project. If you need any help with the statement of work template or want to know how Bit can help your business, let us know by tweeting us @bit_docs. Cheers!