A Memorandum of Understanding
It is generally accepted good practice to replay back to the client what they have asked for. The group, having discussed the meeting with Dr Devlin over the last weeks or so, now have a much clearer understanding of what is required of them.
I decided to put our version of understanding to Dr Devlin in to what is often known in commercial business and an MOU or MOA. (Memorandum of Understanding or Memorandum of Agreement).
At this early stage of engagement, only the briefest of documents are usually required, and as time progresses, a more complete statement of works is sometimes sent to a client, especially if the project has a level of complexity. In this case however, having considered that an SOW is probably unnecessary and almost certainly overkill, in the absence of any negative feedback or requests to change our approach from Dr Devlin, it is assumed that he fully accepts our understandings and we will go forward together on that basis.
Whilst it may seem a trivial matter to document understandings, it saves an awful lot of time and opportunity for later disagreement if a supplier of the service (and in this case it is "we the MA Rotor group" who arguably are providing a service to Dr Devlin), confirm in writing what is expected of them. Both parties therefore have a clear picture of expectations from the outset.
A copy of the example memorandum of understanding is shown below.
