# statementofwork.org

> The commercial toolkits for Statements of Work in services procurement.

statementofwork.org provides a structured framework for writing, reviewing, and managing Statements of Work (SoWs). The standard covers 11 sections, 51 elements, and four engagement types: Time and Materials, Fixed Price, Outcome-Based, and Managed Services.

## What is a Statement of Work?

A Statement of Work is a document that defines the scope, deliverables, pricing, governance, and terms of a services engagement between a buyer and a supplier. It sits alongside a Master Services Agreement (MSA) and governs individual projects or workstreams.

## The Standard

The SoW Standard comes in two parts:

- Legal Standard (free with an account): the Full, Medium, and Lite SoW templates in Word, each available plain or with guidance notes, six documents in all. Every template carries its own cover with engagement type, contract foundation, and AI disclosure fields. AI review and drafting prompts live in the public GitHub repository.
- Commercial Toolkits (one-time subscription): pricing frameworks, commercial playbooks, and the Scope Reference Class Forecast, released by tier.

## Machine-Readable Schema

The standard is published as a machine-readable schema, licensed under Apache 2.0. One schema, rendered two ways: Word templates for people, JSON for software.

- Element register (canonical ids, levels, descriptions, profiles, engagement types): https://www.statementofwork.org/schema/1.0/register.json
- JSON Schema for a SoW instance document (draft 2020-12): https://www.statementofwork.org/schema/1.0/sow.schema.json
- Example instance (Time and Materials consulting): https://www.statementofwork.org/schema/1.0/examples/tm-consulting.json
- Public GitHub home of the schema and prompt library (no account needed to browse, clone, or download): https://github.com/jamiegannaway/statementofwork.org
- MCP server (Model Context Protocol, Streamable HTTP, read-only, no authentication): https://www.statementofwork.org/api/mcp

The MCP server exposes seven read-only tools over the standard: get_standard_overview, list_sections, get_section, get_element, search_elements, list_engagement_types, and get_profile. Any MCP client (Claude, Copilot Studio, Cursor, or a custom agent) can connect to it and query the standard by canonical element id.

Element ids are stable across every rendering: 5.6 means Acceptance Criteria in the Full template, the Medium template, the SoW Scanner output, and the AI prompt library. The schema types integration fields directly: registered company number, D-U-N-S number, and LEI on the parties for credit and KYC tools; structured pricing tables and rate cards for benchmarking; typed deliverables and acceptance criteria for drafting tools; constituent ids on the nine boilerplate provisions for clause libraries.

## 11 Sections of a Statement of Work

The schema defines 51 elements across 11 sections. Full, Medium, and Lite templates are profiles derived from the same schema.

1. Identifier
2. Parties
3. Time
4. Pricing
5. Scope
6. People
7. Performance
8. Regulation
9. Legal
10. Commercial
11. Administration

## Engagement Types

- Time and Materials (T&M): Work billed by time spent at agreed rates.
- Fixed Price: Work delivered for a pre-agreed total price against defined deliverables.
- Outcome-Based: Payment linked to measurable business outcomes.
- Managed Services: Ongoing service delivery governed by SLAs and service credits.

## Subscription

Access to the Commercial Toolkits is a one-time fee with unlimited access and no renewals. Tiers are additive: each includes everything in the tier below. Pricing is firmed up in October 2026.

- Pricing Frameworks: pricing TBC.
- Commercial Playbooks: pricing TBC, includes Pricing Frameworks.
- The Scope Reference Class Forecast: pricing TBC, includes Commercial Playbooks. Reference class forecasting for scope and short term services.

## Certification

Enrolment opens 1 October 2026. Register interest on the site to hear first. The three CSOWP tracks are independent, with no prerequisites.

- Verified (free): 60-minute self-paced walkthrough. No exam. VSOWP badge on completion.
- CSOWP Writing ($99 one-time): nine modules plus a graded capstone, for the people who write SoWs.
- CSOWP Reviewing ($199 one-time): nine modules plus a graded capstone, for contract and procurement professionals.
- CSOWP Managing ($499 one-time): seven modules plus a graded capstone, for programme leads managing SoW compliance across portfolios.

## Scope Reference Class Forecast

Because the standard is machine readable, every completed SoW becomes a comparable data point. Companies can apply reference class forecasting (Kahneman and Tversky's outside view, first applied in government appraisal by Bent Flyvbjerg in 2004) to their own completed engagements: group them into reference classes by engagement type and scope category, chart the distribution of cost, schedule, and scope outcomes, and apply an evidence-based uplift to every new SoW before signature. Details: https://www.statementofwork.org/rcf.html

## AI Prompt Library

An open prompt library for reviewing, scoring, and drafting SoWs against the standard, for use with any LLM: https://github.com/jamiegannaway/statementofwork.org

## Origin

Founded 2018 by Jamie Gannaway from the Defining Work initiative. Workshop at the Royal Society of Arts in January 2019 with Warwick University IER, Innovate UK, ONS, and the UN International Labour Office.

Owner: World Commerce and Contracting (WCC), with 70,000+ members, owns the SoW Standard and its trademarks. WCC research shows 40% of project disputes stem from unclear scope and 8.6% of contract value is eroded by poor contracting.

The SoW Standard is licensed under Apache 2.0. Copyright Jamie Gannaway.

## Links

- Website: https://www.statementofwork.org
- The Standard: https://www.statementofwork.org/standard-detail.html
- Schema (machine readable): https://www.statementofwork.org/schema/1.0/register.json
- GitHub (schema and prompt library): https://github.com/jamiegannaway/statementofwork.org
- Get the standard: https://www.statementofwork.org/download.html
- Subscription: https://www.statementofwork.org/pricing.html
- Scope Reference Class Forecast: https://www.statementofwork.org/rcf.html
- Certification: https://www.statementofwork.org/certify.html
- Verified track: https://www.statementofwork.org/learning/verify.html
- CSOWP Writing: https://www.statementofwork.org/learning/csowp-writing.html
- CSOWP Reviewing: https://www.statementofwork.org/learning/csowp-reviewing.html
- CSOWP Managing: https://www.statementofwork.org/learning/csowp-managing.html
- About: https://www.statementofwork.org/about.html