While working on a software development project, a structured document between the client and the software developer is signed, outlining the overall work scope. It can mitigate misunderstandings, specify tasks and objectives, and define deliverables and expectations of a project. This free template is designed for the same purpose. All the stakeholders involved in a software development project can use it, such as clients, developers, team members, and more. It has sections for writing the project overview, scope details, setting milestones, assigning roles and responsibilities, payment schedule, termination clause, and more. It ensures that the client and the developers are on the same page throughout the project.
The software developer can fill up this form in close coordination with the stakeholders involved. By the start of this template, you can write the project name and your company’s name. You can also write the date and the client name.
The core sections of this template are:
Project Overview
A project overview can help stakeholders understand the project’s scope, facilitate communication, ease resource planning, and guide decision-making. In this section, you can write a brief overview of your project.
Scope Details
Whatever is included in the scope of work can be listed here to enhance the client’s understanding, alignment, and resource planning. Here, you can write all the features, or modules, such as user authentication, user management, dashboard and reporting, content management system, E-commerce functionality, and more. You can also write their brief descriptions and expected delivery dates. Rows are provided for this purpose.
Project Milestones
For tracking the progress, managing timelines, setting goals, and facilitating communication, project milestones are created. In this section, you can write the names of the milestones of your tasks, their description, and the expected completion date for each of these milestones.
Roles and Responsibilities
If you are working in a team, then you can assign roles to each team member and write their responsibilities to develop an environment of accountability and transparency. It assists in effective resource management and risk mitigation. Some of the roles may be project manager, software architect, developer, quality assurance engineer, technical writer, scrum master, and more. Each of these have different responsibilities.
Deliverables
Writing the deliverables can help stakeholders know about the project outputs, timeline management, resource planning, and client expectations. You can write the names of deliverables in this section, such as wireframes and mockups, source code, test cases, software requirements specifications, user documentation, deployment package, and more. You can describe their nature and their due dates.
Acceptance Criteria
For each task of a project, you can set up and write acceptance criteria in close coordination with the client to ensure quality. Once the tasks are completed, the client can evaluate them using the already set acceptance criteria. You can write the acceptance criterion in this section.
Assumptions and Constraints
Normally, each project has some assumptions that can occur in the minds of stakeholders. Such assumptions do not always turn out to be true. However, documenting such assumptions and constraints related to the project helps mitigate confusion. All such assumptions and constraints can be listed in this section of the template. Assumptions can be the availability of resources, stakeholder involvement, third-party integration, and user acceptance. On the other hand, constraints can be budgetary constraints, time constraints, resource constraints, and more.
Payment Schedule
Scheduling payments can help bring transparency to expectations and effectively plan for the future. In this section, you can divide payments into milestones and write their brief descriptions, their due dates, and amounts. By the end of this section, you can also write the total of these payments.
Change Management Process
For providing a structured approach for managing changes to the scope of work, timeline, requirements, and more, there is a structured process. It may involve change request submission, change evaluation, change approval, documentation, feedback, and more as per your needs. In this section, you can write a description of the processes to make any adjustments.
Risks and Mitigations
Having a proactive approach towards identifying the possible risks increases the chances of success of a project. This section is specifically developed to enable you to identify and write such risks and possible strategies that you can adopt to mitigate these risks.
Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure
Does the information in any section of the agreement have confidentiality, sensitive information, or intellectual property? You can write all such aspects of your project in this section of the template to bring clarity, foster understanding, and protect confidential information.
Termination Clause
When an agreement takes place then some terms and conditions are defined, under which the project can be terminated by either party. In this section, you can write all such rights, obligations, and procedures for terminating the contractual relationship.
Signatures
By the end of this template, stakeholders can write their signatures, such as client and developer, including the date.
This template is developed after extensive research and includes all the necessary sections to describe the scope of the software project. It has sections with headings and texts to guide you throughout the process. But the best part of this template is that it also provides you the flexibility to add or remove any sections as per your need.
This template is available in various file formats, such as ODT, DocX, DotX, and Google Docs. It has added features, including print-readiness, easy customization, and comprehensiveness. It eases the overall process of defining the scope of work of software development.
