In case of outside contract work, SOW is provided by?

 Q. In case of outside contract work, SOW is provided by:

a. Buyer

b. Project Sponsor

c. Project Manager

d. Contractor

 

I know answer is either a or d. What is the correct choice? I chose a.

A would be the answer

It is very clear mentioned in PMBOK - Develop project charter - input - SOW. 4.1.1.1

When the Projects is internal, it will be provided by Initator or Sponsor.

When project is external , It could be received by buyer/customer in the form of RFP, RFQ, Bid proposal or as a contract.

Statement of Work is a key objective of project , in case of outside contract work it will be provided by Buyer and then will be narreted in Projet charter by the authorisation of own (contract) project Initiator or Sponsor.

Regards

dude, your statement "When project is external , It could be received by buyer/customer in the form of RFP, RFQ, Bid proposal or as a contract" TAKE NOTE OF THE WORD "RECEIVED" by the buyer... it is true, in this context - the "buyer" is understood to be the owner of the project (or the client in short) while the RFP are to be solicited from the "contractor". So how come the "buyer" is the correct choice?

Read PMBOK4E- 4.1.1.1, I have written reference in my earlier reply.

Also refer any authentic reference like wiki, investpedia or whatever you have available

for reference see this definition:

http://project-management-knowledge.com/definitions/r/request-for-proposal/

Requests for proposals are similar to requests for information in that they are a mechanism that is utilized throughout and across many professional industries, and are not restricted in utilization to that of project management. In many industries, requests for proposals are solicited by buyers or purchasers of long term and or elaborate projects or products to sellers or purveyors of such in the attempt to determine what the different ideas and strategies each of these purveyors may have. Typical lint he area of project management, the request for proposal functions very similarly in that the request for proposal serves as a type of procurement form that is used for the purpose of requesting or soliciting proposals from prospective purveyors or sellers of a series of products and or services. While this definition is very broad, in some the definition may in fact be much narrower, depending on the particular application area that it is being utilized in reference to.

This term is defined in the 3rd and the 4th edition of the PMBOK.

If still your doubt is not clear then I could not do anything more for you.

In case of outside contract work, SOW is provided by:

a. Buyer. A is correct answer.

regards

Interesting question from brainstorming perspective. I have copied-pasted PMBOK line for SOW here:


For internal projects, the project initiator or sponsor provides the statement of work based on business needs, product, or service requirements. For external projects, the statement of work can be received from the customer as part of a bid document, for example, request for proposal, request for information, request for bid, or as part of a contract.


You may do keyword search (as always a bad practice) and conclude out of the given choice nothing is exactly SAME so choose buyer.


When I read this para I notice a word i.e.  “For external projects, the statement of work can be received from the customer” where does PMBOK says it “should be”? And where does PMBOK says that “initiator or sponsor” cannot provide SOW for internal projects?

Please correct your concepts :

I myself is from client side and we prepare first RFP and send to qualified sellers contractors and purveyores.

Regards

Again, my colleague Saket and I here have the same analogy. As i stressed out in my earlier post, when PMBOK wrote that - "For external projects, the statement of work can be received from the customer..." understand well dude, that statement - "CAN BE RECEIVED FROM THE CUSTOMER.." let me point out "RECEIVED FROM"  meaning - the customer will PROVIDE THE SOW which will be received by the Client (or Buyer). Is this not clear to you dude?

Unless your perspective about WHO IS THE BUYER here is mixed-up.

SOW will be received from Customer or Client or Buyer.

Here these all three will be in same category, and will provide SOW by issuing RFP/ BID pro/ RFQ for seller or contractor or purvayor  .

This is basic knowledge.

And I donot find it is any matter of brainstorming, rather a egostorming.

regards

OK, if the customer refered here is the buyer(or client), then within the choices, whats wrong if i select for instance the project initiator? If the SOW are contained in the RFP, who then prepares the RFP? is it not the project initiator or the PM?

If you will go back to the PMBOK, i will copy and paste it below:

Section 4.1.1.1

The statement of work (SOW) is a narrative description of products or services to be delivered by
the project. For internal projects, the project initiator or sponsor provides the statement of work based
on business needs, product, or service requirements
. For external projects, the statement of work can
be received from the customer as part of a bid document, for example, request for proposal, request
for information, request for bid, or as part of a contract.

Look dude, and analyze. For internal projects, the project initiator or sponsor provides the SOW. Now my question to you is, what is the difference between the "external" project why PMBOK did NOT USE the same terms - "project initiator" or project sponsor" if the word customer here refers to the same (buyer/client or sponsor or initiator as you pointed out in your rebut?  :-)

Do you think of it as a lapses of the authors of PMBOK and its technical reviewers?

Now, with this premise, CAN WE SAY THAT REGARDLESS WHETHER THE PROJECT IS INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL, THE SOW IS ALWAYS PREPARED BY THE SPONSOR (WHO IS THE SAME AS THE BUYER, CLIENT OR CUSTOMER)???  

Moreover, it is not a matter of ego sspawar, may be it is ur own feeling but miine is not. See your first post to which i reacted. Your statement there was "When project is external , It could be received by buyer/customer in the form of RFP, RFQ, Bid proposal or as a contract" NOTE dude that RECEIVED BY IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT from RECEIVED FROM. That is what i was trying to emphasize in my earlier post.

To all of you guys, I am doing these kind of analysis and reactions not to boast myself, BUT for us to become also much aware and learn from it, i know most of you agree with me in this context, not for just the sake of debate or whatever, but IN ORDER TO LEAVE A VERY CLEAR PICTURE OF THE QUESTION, HOW QUESTION MUST BE UNDERSTOOD AND INTERPRETED IN ORDER TO GET THE VERY BEST ANSWER WITH A DEEP UNDERSTANDING OF THE ISSUE, and ABOVE ALL, LEARN some techniques in dealing with PMP questions and how wisdom, actual experience, and as well as the "English" language would mean - our english skills is inevitable here as this is the medium language for the PMP exam may contribute in your successful preparation for the PMP exam and also for your actual Project Management exercise.

My colleague “projmanpro” has explained very nicely about it. The problem is these:
1. You read and copy paste, but you do not understand what are you coping-pasting.
2. Your company may follow different processes, even PMI says project management is not a fix and firm process; it differs from company to company. But this does not mean that I start saying what my company does is a universal law. I would always go by PM body of knowledge.
3. As you see, all tricky and good questions are solved by making use of common sense and using PM knowledge you have acquired. If you keep doing keyword search and be happy that you have found out diamond, please remain happy, I cannot stop you, but in reality your happiness is for the charcoal (coal) you have found out and not diamond. If you keep aside common sense and stick to book keywords without understanding it, all I can say is…All the best!
4. If I say, I love to walk, it does not mean I cannot run. Such basic things a good author (research thesis) does not mention, its expected that the reader reads and understand the same way.


Thanks for inventing a new term “egostorming”, you can think out of box for sure, but please apply same super mind to think about the question and its relevance.

Your whole concern of option B is now been concentrated over the word of PMBOK - CAN BE

Let me put a scenario or theme:

suppose You are at foreign tour and you in a city of Europe.

You want to purchase a ticket of  a show. But you dont know from where and what is the timings.

I am there as a citizen and You are aking to me , Excuse me please ,  Sir, Can we purchase the tickets of this show this time and from where.

I replied : ofcourse ! you can purchase tickets from that counter and show can be available after one hour.

It is ENGLISH not HINDI

It does not mean that there is any more other options.

Like this I repeat here the PMBOK lines , please read once:

For internal projects, the project initiator or sponsor provides the statement of work based
on business needs, product, or service requirements
. For external projects, the statement of work can
be received from the customer as part of a bid document, for example, request for proposal, request
for information, request for bid, or as part of a contract.

so it does not mean that it can be received from seller/contractor

Now I put a second situation:

I am a owner , and I want to build a school building of my choice from you as a contractor.

I ask a simple question

What do you want from me in first instant for this? 

Think and get answer by your own.

Regards

No man, you understood wrongly what I and my colleague “projmanpro” is trying to convince. The way you are reading PMBOK sounds like Sponsor is just associated with internal project and.... its wrong. Sponsor is anyone who pays for your project and hence he has the authority to issue you SOW. A project can be internal or external, these are more a virtual names when you think from SOW. Whether the project is internal or external the project Sponsor will provide the SOW as end of day project belong to sponsor. Whether you call sponsor as customer (buyer) it does not really matter. Of given the choice when I see sponsor, I would choose sponsor because he is the person or group that provides the financial resources, in cash or in kind, for the project. When a project is first conceived, the sponsor champions the project. (e.g SOW).


Again, when we restrict to the question and see nothing outside it. We have a choice “The Sponsor” why not choose it having known that Sponsor cannot be wrong. Why do you need to choose buyer that itself is a confusing and un-clear choice?

I am a PMP aspirant, however as per my understanding, for projects internal to the company, the statement of work (SOW) is prepared and issued from the buyer side with input from their project sponsor/managers. In case of outside contract work or projects external to the organization, as in normal bidding process, the contractor may have to prepare the Statement of Work for the customer then they would submit the Statement of Work to the buyer/customer for approval then the project manager (buyer’s side) would rewrite a customer's SOW and make a final document for contractors to execute the job so in this case SOW is provided by contractor first. Also buyer includes some detail of work at the time of issuing a RFP that document can be called statement of requirements (SOR) to understand the concept of operation and requirements of the issuing authority.


 

 

The original Question content:-

" In case of outside contract work,"

What is its meaning

Its meaning either you are a contractor and seeking a work from a cutomer/client/buyer

or

Its meaning you are a customer or client or a Buyer, and want get done your job,(work) and for that you are seeking for a contractor, seller or a purvayor.

Now I ask a simple question in above both the cases - whatsever be the work discription in brief (SOW) , who will come to know to define first.

For example If I am client or customer - want to make a Building, Then What I will do  - From my side I will provide the information of work as SOW in RFP to some selected or qualified contractor.

contractor can never decide and will never provide the RFP to buyer

RFP - request for proposal to contractor from client regarding stated work (SOW)

See an example (template - what is a SOW , who it will provide whom and through which means)

http://www.projectmanagementdocs.com/templates/statement-of-work-template.html

Regards

That is why dude, in the question, WHAT IS WRONG IF I SELECT "PROJECT SPONSOR" for example? 

of whom of Buyer or of Contractor, there is no clarity and probable option could not be a correct answer while there is definite answer is available- as a Buyer.

The term Buyer involves every option it may be Sponsor, Initiator, Owner, PM, or even any Repreentative, but exclusuvely only of Buyer.

Regards

What is the answer?


 


We are not clear on it yet!!!!

SOW should describe in detail what the expected outcome is, and a detailed list of responsibilities of the vendor.
So SOW is intended for the technical expert of the vendor, and is more technical in nature.

Foe better understanding I would like to suggest a read on this article on Statement of work template https://www.techno-pm.com/2018/08/statement-of-work-sample.html.