How SOWs Actually Get Written

In this on-demand conversation, HappyCo's Head of Procurement, Manish Patel sits down with Jason Jones, Senior Director of Capital Expenditures at Lincoln Avenue Communities, to discuss the pitfalls of poorly defined project scopes. Jason shares real examples of what can go wrong when scopes are incomplete — from wildly inconsistent bids to contractor missteps and costly closeout delays. He also explains how he's beginning to use AI to compare bids and build scopes for unfamiliar project types.

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Key Takeaways:

• Own the scope. Scopes often start as a vendor's bid that gets copied and sent to everyone else, unverified. Jason's top advice to project managers: write your own scope, every time, and confirm it's right before it goes out.
• A wide bid spread is a scope signal. When three bids land around $400,000 and a fourth comes in at $200,000–$250,000, the gap usually traces back to materials, methods, or missing work. One contractor planned to use ladders on a job that required swing stages — a $200,000 miss.
• Itemize everything, then read the exclusions first. Jason requires itemized pricing from every vendor, and sends bids back if they aren't. It shows exactly where bids diverge and holds vendors to their original pricing when change orders come later. In a 40–50 page package, inclusions and exclusions are the first section he checks: drawings, permits, profit and overhead.
• The low bid can be the expensive one. Jason has watched teams take the lowest bid out of fear of overspending, then spend three times as much. Manish has seen a $250,000 bid hit half a million in change orders. And an undersized crew can turn a three- or four-month project into a year or more.
• Build the scope from the asset's history. A multi-year capital plan, work order history, leak logs, and solid due diligence at acquisition all make a scope easier to defend. So does walking the job with a 20-year maintenance supervisor, a trusted GC, or an engineer — especially on older properties, where asbestos abatement and other surprises change the picture.

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Speakers:

Manish Patel

Head of Procurement, HappyCo | Manish Patel leads the procurement function at HappyCo, where he works closely with multifamily operators to identify sourcing inefficiencies and build technology that closes them. He's spent his career at the intersection of procurement strategy and property operations, and hosts HappyCo's ongoing sourcing conversation series with industry practitioners.
‍➔ Connect with Manish

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Jason Jones

Senior Director, Capital Expenditures, Lincoln Avenue Communities | Jason Jones has spent more than 30 years in multifamily operations, regional maintenance, capital project management, and capital planning. Today he leads the capital program at Lincoln Avenue Communities as Senior Director of Capital Expenditures.
‍➔ Connect with Jason

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