defining deliverables

A deliverable is anything that your require a vendor to deliver to you, or you are required to deliver to a customer.

For a short-term project, the deliverables could simply be the final product (or service) contracted for. For a long-term project, deliverables could include resumes of contractor personnel working the project, periodic status reports, test or beta versions of a product, documentation, whitepapers, etc.

Required deliverables are normally defined by the customer. There isno set list of deliverables that a customer will always ask for (short of the the final product/service contracted for).

There really is not set methodology other than thinking through exactly what (as a customer) you want delivered contractuallyto you, as well as any timeline for these deliveries.

Deliverable examples (by no means all inclusive):
For a large-scale network installation project:
Installation plan and timeline - due within 1 week of start of contract.
Periodic progressreports - due every Friday before close of business
Test documentation (tests requirements specified elsewhere in the contract) - due at end of project
2 complete sets of network documention (documentation requirements specified elsewhere in the contract) - due at end of project

Hope this helps.