At project pre-selling time, customers and software providers collaborate to
define the product required by the former; and based on it, the latter can
generate a project proposal and a bid. This collaborative activity, that we
have named product scoping, is not properly supported by the current tools and
techniques, mainly due to the constraints imposed by the preselling phase;
e.g., the activity has to be done quickly, accurately, and involving few
resources. This article presents an instrument that supports the product
scoping in bespoke projects, dealing with the main constraints involved in the
pre-selling phase. The instrument is a canvas, and its design was particularly
conceived to support the product scoping of data processing projects; however,
the canvas can be adapted to address other project types. The instrument has
been evaluated with real customers and providers, and the obtained results show
that it helps conduct the product scoping process in a cost-effective way.