As an architect, you will have to validate and make sure that the Statement of Work of the solution complies with project requirements.
It is important that you will pay close attention to the following aspects:
- Executive summary
- High level solution description
- Management objectives & goals
- Major gaps
- Priorities & transition phases
- The feature list is correctly provided by the Business Analysts and is complete
- The non functional requirements (performance KPIs, penetration tests, UX requirements, fail safe, failure scenarios, etc) are included
- Security requirements and compliance checks
- The SoW contains at least the following phases: requirement gathering & analysis, solution definition, build & test, post implementation
- If you migrate from an existing solution to a new one, make sure you address the migration process and choose the right deployment option (e.g. blue-green)
- Make sure that the solution covers all architectural aspects:
- Business Architecture (how the business is transformed, what processes are new and what processes should be changed, etc)
- Data Architecture (e.g. data model)
- Application Architecture (e.g. logical architecture)
- Technology Architecture (e.g. infrastructure, technology stack)
- The architecture document must be provided by the vendor and a formal validation processes must be explicitly included in SoW
- Acceptance criteria of the solution:
- UAT entrance criteria
- UAT exit criteria
- Non functional validation
Make sure that each chapter contains deliverables and completion criteria paragraphs.
In addition, you should check to see that the following aspects are addressed:
- Development requirements & procedures
- Operational requirements
- Testing requirements
- SLA & OLA
- Project team
- Project plan
- Training