sow-estimate

SOW Estimate — WBS Extraction & PERT Bridge

1. Overview

This skill bridges the gap between a Statement of Work and PERT three-point estimation. It reads a SOW document (produced by sow-write or provided manually), extracts the work breakdown structure, roles, and risks, transforms them into PERT-compatible input, and invokes the pmo-pert-estimate skill. After PERT completes, it backfills the SOW's Economics and Schedule sections with the estimation results.

Input: SOW document (markdown or docx) — must have at least: scope/phases, team/roles, and ideally risk sections Output: Updated SOW with populated Economics and Schedule sections + PERT Excel workbook

---

2. Pipeline

Step 1 — Read SOW

Parse the SOW document. Identify:

• Mode: full (15-section) or summary (9-section) from structure
• Language: detect for output consistency
• Section map: which sections are present and their locations

Verify minimum content for extraction:

• Phases or deliverables (required — cannot estimate without scope)
• Roles or team composition (required — cannot allocate resources)
• Risks (optional — will create minimal risk register if absent)

If the SOW lacks phases or roles, stop and advise the user to complete the SOW first (or run sow-write).

Step 2 — Extract WBS

Read references/extraction-rules.md for the mapping rules.

From the SOW's Multi-Phase Breakdown (full mode section 6) or Deliverables Table (summary mode section 3), extract:

SOW Element	PERT Mapping	WBS Level
Phase headings	Level 1 WBS items	1 (e.g., 1, 2, 3)
Subsections within phases	Level 2 work packages	1.1, 1.2, 2.1
Individual deliverables	Level 3 leaf activities	1.1.1, 1.1.2
Acceptance criteria	Definition of Done per activity	Metadata
Dependencies between phases	Predecessor/successor relationships	Relationships

For each extracted activity, note:

• Name and description
• Owner (from RACI or deliverables table)
• Acceptance criteria (if present)
• Phase assignment
• Dependencies (if identifiable)

Present the extracted WBS to the user for validation before proceeding.

Step 3 — Extract Roles

From the SOW's Collaboration Model (full mode section 8) or Team (summary mode section 6), extract:

SOW Element	PERT Mapping
Role name	Role code
Organization	Team assignment
Allocation %	Availability
Billable flag	Billable metadata
Seniority/level (if stated)	Rate tier

If the SOW includes a rate card (section 10), extract rates. Otherwise, note that rates will be determined during the PERT estimation phase.

Step 4 — Extract Risks

From the SOW's Risk Management (full mode section 11) or any risk mentions in other sections:

SOW Element	PERT Mapping
Risk description	Risk entry
Probability (if scored)	P value (1-5)
Impact (if scored)	I value (1-5)
Strategy	Response strategy
Mitigation	Mitigation action
Owner	Risk owner

If the SOW has no risk section, create a minimal risk register with 3-5 standard risks derived from the project type and scope.

Step 5 — Generate PERT Input

Produce a structured context document that the pmo-pert-estimate skill can consume. This document contains:

1. Project context — extracted from SOW sections 2-3 (executive summary, context & objectives)
2. WBS draft — hierarchical structure from step 2
3. Role Breakdown Structure — team composition from step 3
4. Risk register — risks from step 4
5. Targets — if the SOW has budget or timeline references, include them as PERT targets
6. Configuration hints — language, effort unit, duration unit (from SOW context)

Save to docs/pert-workspace/sow-extraction.md.

Step 6 — Invoke PERT

Hand off to pmo-pert-estimate with the extracted structure. The PERT skill runs its full pipeline:

• Phase 2: context analysis (using the extraction document as input)
• Phase 3: WBS + RBS refinement (starting from the extracted draft, not from scratch)
• Phase 4: risk assessment + three-point estimation
• Phase 5: Excel generation
• Phase 6: validation

The user interacts with the PERT skill normally — the extraction just provides a head start rather than starting from raw documents.

Step 7 — Backfill SOW

After PERT completes, read the estimation results and populate the SOW:

Economics section (full mode section 10):

• Effort summary per phase (from PERT WBS sheet rollups)
• CAPEX/OPEX breakdown (if rate information available)
• Rate card (from PERT resources sheet)
• Payment schedule (aligned with SOW milestones)
• Confidence intervals (from PERT summary sheet: 68% and 95% CI)
• Total estimate with management reserve

Schedule section (full mode section 9):

• PERT-derived timeline (from Timeline sheet)
• Updated milestone dates (based on PERT duration calculations)
• Critical path (from dependency analysis)

For summary mode: update Milestones & Billing (section 4) with amounts derived from PERT.

Present the backfilled sections to the user for review before writing.

Step 8 — Output

Save the updated SOW (replacing the economics placeholder with actual content) to the same path, incrementing the version:

• docs/outbox/<project-name>-sow-v0.1.0.md → docs/outbox/<project-name>-sow-v0.2.0.md

Present a summary: extraction statistics (phases, activities, roles, risks extracted), PERT results (total effort, duration, CI ranges), and the updated SOW location.

---

3. Progressive Disclosure

Step	Documents to Read
Steps 1, 3-4	(no references — direct SOW parsing)
Step 2	references/extraction-rules.md
Steps 5-8	(no references — PERT skill handles its own progressive disclosure)

---

4. Error Handling

• SOW lacks phases: stop, advise user to complete scope section or run sow-write
• SOW lacks roles: stop, advise user to add collaboration model
• Extraction ambiguity: when a SOW element could map to multiple WBS levels, ask the user
• PERT estimation diverges significantly from SOW targets: the PERT skill's reconciliation protocol handles this (see pmo-pert-estimate Phase 4)
• Backfill conflicts: if the SOW's Economics section already has content (not placeholder), ask user whether to replace or merge