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.
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.
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