What Are Deliverables?
Let me tell you directly: the term 'deliverables' is a key concept in project management, referring to the quantifiable goods or services that you must provide when a project wraps up. These can be tangible items, like acquiring a dozen new computers for a tech upgrade in your firm. Or they can be intangible, such as implementing a software program that boosts your company's accounts receivable efficiency.
Key Takeaways
Understand this: 'deliverable' describes the goods or services you submit at the end of a project. They come in tangible forms, like new computers, or intangible ones, like software setups. Deliverables might also include training programs, whether in-person or online, and design samples for developing products. Often, they come with instruction manuals. In film production, deliverables mean the audio, visual, and paperwork files producers hand over to distributors.
How Deliverables Work
Beyond hardware and software, deliverables can involve training programs or design samples, and they frequently include instruction manuals. These are typically contractually required, outlined in agreements between parties—whether inside your company or between a client and a contractor. The documentation spells out the deliverable's description, timeline, and payment terms.
Milestones
Large projects often feature milestones, which are interim goals you hit at specific times. A milestone could be part of the deliverable itself or just a progress report on the project's status.
Film Deliverables
In film, deliverables cover audio, visual, and paperwork files that producers submit to distributors. This includes stereo and Dolby 5.1 mixes, separate music and sound effects files, and the full movie in a set format. Paperwork involves licensing agreements for music, performance releases, credit lists, and legal releases for locations, artwork, and logos. You'll also deal with trailers, TV spots, publicity stills, and other ancillary elements.
Types of Deliverables
Deliverables split into tangible and intangible categories. Tangible ones might be building a new office or factory to handle growth. Intangible examples include employee training programs. Then there's internal versus external: internal deliverables are in-house steps toward project completion, not seen by customers—like constructing a factory for increased production. External deliverables are the final products customers receive, such as goods from that new factory.
Requirements for Deliverables
Every project starts with a defined goal and a clear path to reach it. As a project manager, you set a timeline with deliverables due at intervals, which serve as milestones. Projects vary—process-based, phased, product-based, or change-focused—but all have stages like initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closing, each requiring specific deliverables. At the outset, contracts list expectations, timelines, and deliverable types, often in a statement of work that sets agreed-upon aspects.
Examples and Differences
Examples of deliverables include strategy reports, budgets, progress updates, beta products, or test results—anything quantifiable marking completion. Objectives differ from deliverables: objectives cover outcomes and benefits outside the project, while deliverables are the tangible results enabling those objectives. Simply put, a deliverable is a deadline or milestone provided to customers, quantifiable as part of the project plan.
The Bottom Line
Deliverables are the goods or services you provide at project steps and endpoints, keeping everything on track for efficient time and money use. They help you stay focused and are essential for business success.
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