As detailed as is required to keep both parties "safe" and to satisfy control requirements. As usual, this is an "it depends" scenario.
If two parties have worked together frequently and there is a high level of trust between the organizations, the SoW might be lighter.
An MSA (assuming you mean Master Services Agreement) is usually put in place to reduce the effort involved with individual projects between a client and vendor. The expectation is that there will be multiple projects over time and so a number of the common T's & C's will be taken care of in the MSA, resulting in light SoW's for individual projects.
An MSA is a formal agreement just as a SoW is, so yes, it can be used as the basis for dispute resolution and claims handling.
Kiron
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1 reply by Keith Novak
Mar 03, 2019 10:46 AM
Keith Novak
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While a SOW is a formal agreement, it can be internal only instead of an agreement with any external customer. In engineering at least, the contract between supplier and customer is generally the deliverable, not the work required to produce it. The "how" is internal to the supplier.
An MSA is a formal agreement just as a SoW is, so yes, it can be used as the basis for dispute resolution and claims handling.
Kiron
While a SOW is a formal agreement, it can be internal only instead of an agreement with any external customer. In engineering at least, the contract between supplier and customer is generally the deliverable, not the work required to produce it. The "how" is internal to the supplier. Saving Changes...
Mark StewardDirector| Arrow Zee AustraliaSydney, Nsw, Australia
A Master Services Agreement defines the commercial relationship between two entities, whereas an SOW defines the work that is being undertaken. Once an MSA is in place, then subsequent works can be undertaken by simply issuing new SOW's which reference the MSA. If an MSA is not in place then each new piece of work is effectively a new contract, meaning it would have to go through the same legal reviews etc. etc.
SOW's need not be long, they can be one to two page forms that are filled out. They will include things such as timeframes, description of the work and deliverables, resources, rates, contacts, MSA reference etc. Saving Changes...
Interesting. In our line of work (defence procurement), a SOW is very detailed as it must describe "ALL" work to be done, including technical/ performance requirements, and validation/ acceptance criteria. SOWs here can easily be several 100's of pages. For example, I'm just finishing a partial WBS for contract deliverables on a "small" CAN$400M contract that contains over 2000 WBS elements.
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2 replies by Keith Novak and Mark Steward
Mar 05, 2019 6:24 PM
Mark Steward
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Steve, great points. I agree that SOW's need to be true to their name and clearly specify the work to be undertaken. At one organisation, we often used SOW's to engage additional contingent workers for projects. We would have an MSA in place with the service provider and then issue SOW's for resources e.g. an additional test analyst for four weeks. The SOW specified all the work to be done, but in these cases, given the amount of the work, it only required a couple of pages.
Mar 06, 2019 1:08 PM
Keith Novak
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It's interesting that you have that much detail. We also have extensive SOW as a supplier to defense contracts, but they would typically call out a specification control drawing change, or perhaps a new/revised requirement rather than include the detailed requirements. Similarly we would call out defining test plans, supporting tests, etc. and but not the actual criteria.
That's one of the challenges I see in the future with digital transformation efforts, is that when exchanging data between parties, it can be organized very differently even in similar industries.
Saving Changes...
Mark StewardDirector| Arrow Zee AustraliaSydney, Nsw, Australia
Mar 05, 2019 12:40 PM
Replying to Steve Ratkaj
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Interesting. In our line of work (defence procurement), a SOW is very detailed as it must describe "ALL" work to be done, including technical/ performance requirements, and validation/ acceptance criteria. SOWs here can easily be several 100's of pages. For example, I'm just finishing a partial WBS for contract deliverables on a "small" CAN$400M contract that contains over 2000 WBS elements.
Steve, great points. I agree that SOW's need to be true to their name and clearly specify the work to be undertaken. At one organisation, we often used SOW's to engage additional contingent workers for projects. We would have an MSA in place with the service provider and then issue SOW's for resources e.g. an additional test analyst for four weeks. The SOW specified all the work to be done, but in these cases, given the amount of the work, it only required a couple of pages.
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1 reply by Steve Ratkaj
Mar 06, 2019 9:56 AM
Steve Ratkaj
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Yes, we have something similar in place for certain types of consultative services. They (Standing Offers/ contracts) are managed outside of the project organization. Companies are pre-qualified, and hourly rates are fixed. There are certain categories for services one can chose from, and all that is needed is a "call-up" against the Standing Offer.
Steve, great points. I agree that SOW's need to be true to their name and clearly specify the work to be undertaken. At one organisation, we often used SOW's to engage additional contingent workers for projects. We would have an MSA in place with the service provider and then issue SOW's for resources e.g. an additional test analyst for four weeks. The SOW specified all the work to be done, but in these cases, given the amount of the work, it only required a couple of pages.
Yes, we have something similar in place for certain types of consultative services. They (Standing Offers/ contracts) are managed outside of the project organization. Companies are pre-qualified, and hourly rates are fixed. There are certain categories for services one can chose from, and all that is needed is a "call-up" against the Standing Offer. Saving Changes...
