This page belongs to the scope creep adjudication guide, which covers the inventory before a PSA migration. Here the job is narrower: a tree a professional services automation consultant can walk in one conversation to find out who can say yes, and where that yes stops.
The sign-off tree for a services firm's change decisions
Read it from the top. Each fork is a question answered in conversation, with no document opened.
- Who approves or rejects change requests today? In most consulting and IT services firms, the delivery director or head of delivery. Start there: they know how disputes about out-of-scope work were settled and which engagements produced most of them.
- If approvals are split by practice, pick the practice lead with the longest history and note the others.
- Where does the decision trail live? Typically the PSA for tasks, time and change requests; a contract tool or document library for SOW versions; email for client requests. Expect the ruling and the contract to sit apart; Microsoft's own process guidance gives change request handling a separate step from contract maintenance, and many firms file them separately too.
- If part of the history sits with a former parent firm or an outsourced PMO, record it as an open ownership question.
- Do the records quote clients? SOWs and change requests almost always name the client, its prices and sometimes its systems.
- Yes: the contracts lead or general counsel reads the confidentiality and data-use clauses before anything is proposed. The SOW confidentiality guide shows how those clauses tend to read.
- If the firm wants some clients or practices left out entirely, that can be discussed: see excluding departments from a licensing discussion.
- Who can authorize a discussion about licensing firm records? The CEO, or in a partnership the managing partner. The finance director sometimes joins to prepare the case, because write-offs and goodwill credits sit on the billing side.
- End of the tree: SourceX rights review. The partner's work ends at an authorized introduction. Which records are in scope is decided after it.
Which records belong to the firm, and which quote the client
Authority follows origin. Sorting the record classes this way tells the partner which fork each one takes.
| Record class | Who created it | Client content inside | Whose sign-off to expect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internal approval notes on change requests | The firm | Low; mostly the firm's reasoning | CEO; counsel checks confidentiality |
| Time entries and task codes | The firm | Project names, sometimes client names | Executive sponsor |
| Contract line caps and budget changes | The firm, from the contract | Prices and limits agreed with the client | Executive sponsor and contracts lead |
| SOW versions and amendments | Jointly negotiated | Client name, scope, prices, systems | Contracts lead or general counsel |
| Client request emails | The client | Client staff names and wording | Counsel; may be excluded or de-identified |
Caps deserve a note. Whether a ceiling sits on a time and material line (Microsoft's software calls it a not-to-exceed limit) or the engagement is priced as a fixed amount, that number was negotiated with the client. A record of effort climbing toward it therefore follows the SOW branch, not the internal one. A firm comparing engagement models may also find the time-and-materials versus managed services valuation page useful context.
Five people around the change request, and the limit of each
| Person | What they know | Can authorize a licensing discussion? | The one question to ask |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delivery director | Where SOWs, change requests and approvals sit; how disputes ended | No; sponsors it | "How far back can you follow an approved change to its SOW version?" |
| PSA administrator | Fields, exports, migration dates | No; access is not authority | Facts only, through the director |
| Contracts lead or general counsel | Client confidentiality and data-use clauses | Advises on limits; can block | "Do client agreements restrict reuse of SOW content?" |
| Finance director | Write-offs, goodwill credits, billing lines | No; helps prepare the case | "Would the billing side of disputes be in scope?" |
| CEO or managing partner | Strategy and appetite for a new revenue line | Yes; authorizes and signs | "Would you take a first call about licensing?" |
The general method for other kinds of firms is in finding the right decision-maker for a data partnership.
Questions that stay open until rights review
Some forks cannot be closed by the partner or the firm in a first meeting. Saying so makes the introduction more credible, not less.
- Client terms. Whether a given client agreement allows reuse of its SOW and change requests is a legal reading.
- Email-only rulings. Older approvals may live in inboxes. Even where newer tools capture rationale and approval history, as Microsoft's planned change order feature is described to do, earlier informal rulings stay where they were written.
- Data scope. The firm can keep particular information outside an agreed scope; see keeping information outside an agreed data scope.
- Demand and terms. Whether these records match current dataset demand, what must be de-identified and whether any offer follows are unknown until SourceX reviews them. The why data rights matter page explains why that review comes first.
SourceX licenses approved business data directly from companies for AI training and evaluation, and manages the agreement, rights review, data preparation, delivery and payout.
Checking authority before the introduction goes out
Three checks, all answerable without seeing a record:
- Sponsor in place. The delivery director confirms the trail exists, roughly how many change requests a year, and agrees to raise the idea internally.
- Signer named. The CEO or managing partner has agreed to a first call, or the sponsor has committed to ask this week.
- Firm fits. The introduced firm needs 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded), a documented operating history, rights to license the records and an authorized contact. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 90% of the data is in English.
Partners sign the Channel Partner Agreement before submitting introductions, and the first valid introduction within the 90-day window is credited when the company submits a verified application. Write the note with the scope creep referral brief template; if the director asks how the records join up, the cross-system map shows it, and the statement of work archive page covers SOWs as a record type.
Next step
Refer a company. Earn up to $100,000. Default reward: 25% of Actual Supplier Payout, capped at $100,000 cumulatively per referred company. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
When the tree ends at a managing partner or CEO who will take the call, register as a partner, confirm the firm against who qualifies, and read the program terms before you make the introduction.