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Optimize Your Software Selection Process: Why 5 and 30 Are the Magic Numbers

Select your applications better, faster, cheaper.

  • 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.

Optimize Your Software Selection Process: Why 5 and 30 Are the Magic Numbers 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.

1. Align and eliminate elapsed time

Ensure a formal selection process is in place and make a concerted effort to align stakeholder calendars.

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.

3. Focus on high-impact activities

Narrow the field to four contenders prior to in-depth comparison and engage in accelerated enterprise architecture oversight.

4. Use these rapid and essential selection tools

Focus on key use cases rather than lists of features.

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.


Optimize Your Software Selection Process: Why 5 and 30 Are the Magic Numbers

Select your applications better, faster, and cheaper.

How to Read This Software Selection Insight Primer

  1. 43,000 Data Points
  2. This report is based on data gathered from a survey of 43,000 real-world IT practitioners.

  3. Aggregating Feedback
  4. The data is compiled from SoftwareReviews (a sister company of Info-Tech Research Group), which collects and aggregates feedback on a wide variety of enterprise technologies.

  5. Insights Backed by Data
  6. The insights, charts, and graphs in this presentation are all derived from data submitted by real end users.

The First Magic Number Is Five

The optimal software selection team comprises five people

  • Derived from 43,000 data points. Analysis of thousands of software selection projects makes it clear a tight core selection team accelerates the selection process.
  • Five people make up the core team. A small but cross-functional team keeps the project moving without getting bogged down on calendar alignment and endless back-and-forth.
  • It is a balancing act. Having too few stakeholders on the core selection team will lead to missing valuable information, while having too many will lead to delays and politically driven inefficiencies.

There Are Major Benefits to Narrowing the Selection Team Size to Five

Limit the risk of ineffective “decision making by committee”

Expedite resolution of key issues and accelerate crucial decisions

Achieve alignment on critical requirements

Streamline calendar management

Info-Tech Insight

Too many cooks spoil the broth: create a highly focused selection team that can devote the majority of its time to the project while it’s in flight to demonstrate faster time to value.

Arm Yourself With Data to Choose the Right Plays for Selection

Software selection takes forever. The process of choosing even the smallest apps can drag on for years: sometimes in perpetuity.

Organizations keep too many players on the field, leading to scheduling slowdowns and scope creep.

Keeping the size of the core selection team down, while liaising with more stakeholders and subject matter experts (SMEs), leads to improved results.

Maximize project effectiveness with a five-person team. Project satisfaction and effectiveness are stagnant or decrease once the team grows beyond five people.

Cumbersome or ad hoc selection processes lead to business-driven software selection.

Increase stakeholder satisfaction by using a consistent selection framework that captures their needs while not being a burden.

Empower both IT and end users with a standardized selection process to consistently achieve high satisfaction coming out of software selection projects.

The image contains a graph that is titled: A compact selection team can save you weeks. The graph demonstrates time saved with a five person team in comparison to larger teams.

Project Satisfaction and Effectiveness Are Stagnant Once the Team Grows Beyond Five People

The image contains a graph to demonstrate project satisfaction and effectiveness being stagnant with a team larger than five.
  • There is only a marginal difference in selection effectiveness when more people are involved, so why include so many? It only bogs down the process!
  • Full-time resourcing: At least one member of the five team members must be allocated to the selection initiative as a full-time resource.

Info-Tech Insight

It sounds natural to include as many players as possible in the core selection group; however, expanding the group beyond five people does not lead to an increase in satisfaction. Consider including a general stakeholder feedback working session instead.

Shorten Project Duration by Capping the Selection Team at Five People

However, it is important to make all stakeholders feel heard

The image contains a graph to demonstrate that an increase in time and effort connects with an increase in total number of people involved.

Exclusion is not the name of the game.

  • Remember, we are talking about the core selection team.
  • Help stakeholders understand their role in the project.
  • Educate stakeholders about your approach to selection.
  • Ensure stakeholders understand why the official selection team is being capped at five people.
  • Soliciting requirements and feedback from a broader array of stakeholders is still critical.

Large Organizations Benefit From Compact Selection Teams Just as Much as Small Firms

Think big even if your organization is small

Small organizations

Teams smaller than five people are common due to limited resources.

Medium organizations

Selection project satisfaction peaks with teams of fewer than two people. Consider growing the team to about five people to make stakeholders feel more included with minimal drops in satisfaction.

Large organizations

Satisfaction peaks when teams are kept to three to five people. With many SMEs available, it is critical to choose the right players for your team.

The image contains a multi bar graph to demonstrate the benefits of compact selection teams depending on the size of the company, small, medium, or large.

Keep the Core Selection Team to Five People Regardless of the Software Category

Smaller selection teams yield increased satisfaction across software categories

Info-Tech Insight

Core team size remains the same regardless of the application being selected. However, team composition will vary depending on the end users being targeted.

Think beyond application complexity

  • Our instinct is to vary the size of the core selection team based on perceived application complexity.
  • The data has demonstrated that a small team yields increased satisfaction for applications across a wide array of application complexity profiles.
  • The real differentiator for complex applications will be the number of stakeholders that the core selection team liaise with, particularly for defining strong requirements.

The image contains a graph to demonstrate satisfaction across software categories increases with smaller selection teams.

The Second Magic Number Is 30

Finish the project while stakeholders are still fully engaged in order to maximize satisfaction

  • 30- to 60-day project timelines are critical. Keep stakeholders engaged with a defined application selection timeline that moves the project forward briskly.
  • Strike while the iron is hot. Deliver applications in a timely manner after the initial request. Don’t let IT become the bottleneck for process optimization.
  • Minimize scope creep: As projects drag on in perpetuity, the scope of the project balloons to something that cannot possibly achieve key business objectives in a timely fashion.

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

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