Optimize Your Software Selection Process: Why 5 and 30 Are the Magic Numbers
Select your applications better, faster, cheaper.
Member Challenge
- Software selection takes forever. The process of choosing even the smallest apps can drag on for years: sometimes in perpetuity. Software selection teams are sprawling, leading to scheduling slowdowns and scope creep. Moreover, cumbersome or ad hoc selection processes lead to business-driven software selection.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Maximize project effectiveness with a five-person team. Project satisfaction and effectiveness is stagnant or decreases once the team grows beyond five people.
- Tight project timelines are critical. Keep stakeholders engaged with a defined application selection timeline that moves the project forward briskly – 30 days is optimal.
- Empower both IT and end users with a standardized selection process to consistently achieve high satisfaction coming out of software selection projects.
Impact and Result
- Shatter stakeholder expectations with truly rapid application selections.
- Put the “short” back in shortlist by consolidating the vendor shortlist up-front and reducing downstream effort.
- Identify high-impact software functionality by evaluating fewer use cases.
- Lock in hard savings and do not pay list price by using data-driven tactics.
Research & Tools
Discover the Magic Numbers
Increase project satisfaction with a five-person core software selection team that will close out projects within 30 days.
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Optimize Your Software Selection Process: Why 5 and 30 Are the Magic Numbers Storyboard
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1. Align and eliminate elapsed time
Ensure a formal selection process is in place and make a concerted effort to align stakeholder calendars.
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2. Reduce low-impact activities
Reduce time spent watching vendor dog and pony shows, while reducing the size of your RFPs or skipping them entirely.
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3. Focus on high-impact activities
Narrow the field to four contenders prior to in-depth comparison and engage in accelerated enterprise architecture oversight.
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4. Use these rapid and essential selection tools
Focus on key use cases rather than lists of features.
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The Software Selection Workbook
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The Vendor Evaluation Workbook
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The Guide to Software Selection: A Business Stakeholder Manual
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5. Engage Two Viable Vendors in Negotiation
Save more by bringing two vendors to the final stage of the project and surfacing a consolidated list of demands prior to entering negotiation.
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