An Instrument to Define the Product Scope at Pre-selling Time

At project pre-selling time, customers and software providers collaborate to define the product required by the former; and based on it, the latter can generate a project proposal and a bid. This collaborative activity, that we have named product scoping, is not properly supported by the current tools and techniques, mainly due to the constraints imposed by the pre-selling phase; e.g., the activity has to be done quickly, accurately, and involving few resources. This article presents an instrument that supports the product scoping in bespoke projects, dealing with the main constraints involved in the pre-selling phase. The instrument is a canvas, and its design was particularly conceived to support the product scoping of data processing projects; however, the canvas can be adapted to address other project types. The instrument has been evaluated with real customers and providers, and the obtained results show that it helps conduct the product scoping process in a cost-effective way.