Companies are running projects on regular phases; these projects might differ on budget, scope and time. In order to agree on these, each Project Manager (PM) should define the 3 following documents:

1. Scope of Work (SOW)
2. Project Plan
3. Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RACI).

The Scope of Work is a one page document which clearly identifies the goals, constraints, and success criteria for the project, in other words this document establish the rules of the game.

The Project Plan is an important “Live” document that breaks down the project into phases, milestones and its own dependencies. Also a project plan allows to know duration, resources required to complete each milestone and its cost.

Once the PM has set up the plan, a Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RACI) is required in order to lay out the major deliverables in the project and the key stakeholders. This document answers questions like who will make decisions?, who is responsible?, who is informed?, who is signing off?.

These three documents allows to make sure every person involve in the project understands and agrees on what success will look like.