Integrated Project Management By Earl Hall, Juliane Johnson
Table of Contents
Chapter 2. The Project, the Statement of Work, and the Specification
Every project must have a sponsor. As mentioned in the preceding text, a sponsor is someone within an organization who first discovers the need for a project and proceeds to get the project off the ground. If the project serves an external customer, the sponsor acts as the official contact with that customer. For new products and product improvement projects, the marketing manager is often the sponsor and the customer. For process improvement projects and Information Technology projects for operating departments, the sponsor is also the customer, because he or she has discovered the need and ordered that the work be done. The sponsor must be a person who is an executive or manager who has discretionary control over committing people and other resources or has a direct channel for requesting such commitments. After the go ahead to begin is ensured, the sponsor chooses a project manager.
The sponsor directs the project manager to draft a statement of work. The statement of work can be defined as an outline of what will be done to migrate the project from a general concept to a precise specification.
The statement of work goes by different names in different organizations. It is sometimes only a verbal agreement, but it should be put in writing to prevent confusion later on. The adage, "If it isn't in writing, it hasn't been said," applies here.
