Fill this in before you ask anyone for a quote. Suppliers who receive the same written description send back quotes you can compare.
Ten to fifteen minutes is enough for a first pass. Write short answers and leave a blank where you do not know. Then go through it again with the people who do the work each day.
1. The problem in two sentences
Describe what goes wrong today, or what the business cannot do. Leave the software out of it for now. For example: “Orders arrive by email and are typed into two systems. Finding and correcting the mistakes takes about a day a week.”
- Sentence one, the problem:
- Sentence two, what it costs the business:
2. Who will use it
List each group of people. Include customers or suppliers if they will log in.
| Group of users | How many | What they need to do |
|---|---|---|
- How many would use it at once on a busy day:
- Where they work (office, home, on site, on a phone):
3. What they do today
Describe the current way of working: the spreadsheet, the paper form, the old system. Say what works well too, because the new software has to keep it.
- What is used today:
- Who looks after it:
- What works well and must be kept:
- What goes wrong most often:
4. The five things it must do on day one
Stop at five. Write each as something a person does, for example “a planner assigns a job to an engineer”. Anything that does not make the five goes in section 5.
| No. | On day one it must |
|---|---|
| 1 | |
| 2 | |
| 3 | |
| 4 | |
| 5 |
5. What can wait
List what you want eventually but could launch without. A supplier who knows about these can allow for them in the design without pricing them now.
| Feature | Why it can wait |
|---|---|
6. What it must connect to
Name every other system the new software has to exchange information with, such as an accounting package, a website or a payment provider. Say which way the information travels, and whether someone types it in again today.
| System | What passes between them | How often |
|---|---|---|
7. The data to bring across
Most new systems start with records from the old one. Cleaning and moving them is often a larger job than expected, so list them now.
| Data | Where it is now | Roughly how much |
|---|---|---|
- How many years of history are needed:
- Who can say whether the data is accurate:
8. Constraints
Give the reason behind each constraint where you can. A deadline set by a contract or a year end is planned for differently from a preferred date.
- Deadline, and the reason for it:
- Budget range, as a low and a high figure:
- Security or regulatory requirements (for example personal data, card payments, rules in your sector):
- Anything already decided (hosting, technology, a system that must stay):
A supplier can do more with a budget range than with a single figure or none. If you have no starting point, our software development cost calculator gives a range from six questions. If the software will hold personal data, take advice on your data protection obligations.
9. How you will know it worked
Choose measures you could check six months after launch, for example “month end takes two days, down from five”.
| Measure | Today | Target |
|---|---|---|
Project snapshot
Copy your answers into this table and send it to each supplier you ask for a quote. Keep it to one page.
| Item | Your answer |
|---|---|
| Organisation and contact | |
| The problem | |
| Users and numbers | |
| What is used today | |
| The five day-one essentials | |
| What can wait | |
| Must connect to | |
| Data to bring across | |
| Deadline and reason | |
| Budget range | |
| Security or regulatory needs | |
| How we will know it worked | |
| Quote needed by |
What to do with it
Send the same snapshot to every supplier, so that the quotes describe the same piece of work. A scope written down this clearly is also what a fixed price depends on. Our fixed-price page explains how a price is agreed before work starts.