Module 5.c: Making a SOW from a SOO

Intro

So, the government gave a Statement of Objectives and has a “provide a draft statement of work” requirements in their RFP. Let’s see what AI can do about that, but first, what’s the difference?

SOO vs. SOW

Statement of Objectives (SOO)

• A high-level document that describes the desired outcomes of a government acquisition.
• It is typically used when the government wants to encourage innovation and allow contractors to propose different approaches to meeting the objectives.
• The SOO does not specify how the work should be done, but rather focuses on the desired results.

Statement of Work (SOW)

• A more detailed document that describes the specific tasks, deliverables, timelines, and performance requirements for a government acquisition.
• It is typically used when the government has a well-defined understanding of the work that needs to be done.
• The SOW provides a roadmap for contractors to follow in order to meet the government's requirements.

Here is a table that summarizes the key differences between SOOs and SOWs:

I. Context

Lets start by getting the AI on task for what we’re doing here, we can also use this step to clarify our own understanding of the task. Personally, for these tasks that require some currency I like to use a GPt that’s connected to a search engine, like Bing or Bard.

Prompt:

What is the difference between a statement of objectives and a statement of work in government contracting?

Is it common for the government to provide a SOO in a solicitation and require the contractor to propose a statement of work to achieve those objectives?

II. Format

If the government doesn’t give you a format for the SOW, you may have to take your best shot at making one ourself, so let’s leverage the AI for that task as well and use it to form the format for the follow-on instruction prompt.

Prompt:

Is there a common format for a statement of work?

III. Persona and Instruction

This task is pretty simple so we don't need to cram the prompt window with context, just enough to make the output decent quality. Now, for this task I want to use a higher quality model like Claude2 or GPT4, the last thing I want to do is run out of tokens part way though a task *cough cough “Bing” cough cough*

Prompt:

Imagine you work at a company called Acme Corp, which is a government contractor and you have to write a detailed statement of work for the following SOO, please put the SOW in the format you outlined, and ensure you include measurable metrics of success for each SOW task, be incredibly detailed and technically specific.

Follow-on prompt:

Give me ideas for a technical approach to accomplishing the requirements list in in section 3 of this SOW, give me one technical approach for each requirement.

IV. Practical Exercise

1. Do it yourself! if you need a SOO, try any of the objective statements from an SBIR topic.
2. Follow the steps above and share your results in the group
3. Give feedback below