No Sheep

10 Steps to a Better Product Choice

// August 17th, 2005 // Technology Bits

OK, so its kinda lame for me to just reproduce content, but I have somewhat good reason. Jon and I wrote up a policy recommendation titled “10 Steps to a Better Product Choice” that was never adopted. However, I still think this is a valuable policy, as does he. Recently he blogged it, and now I’m just rehashing.

10 Steps to a better product choice
The following steps are designed to be used in conjunction with normal project management procedures to ensure due process is given when considering technical solutions.

1. Determine initial user base and stakeholders
2. Determine requirements and dependencies (desired features, architecture, budget, etc.)
3. Re-evaluate user base and stakeholders
4. Repeat step 2 for new user base and stakeholders if necessary
5. Identify 3 or more potential solutions. Consideration should be given to what products are used in other similar institutions. Commercial, open source, and homegrown solutions should all be considered
6. Compare the delivered features of each potential solution against the defined requirements and dependencies and list any additional benefits
7. Estimate the implementation costs and timeline for each potential solution. Estimate ongoing costs including licensing, server upgrades, IT support, helpdesk, product upgrades, patches, etc.
8. Compile report including return on investment, costs, requirement/dependency fulfillment, and features
9. Choose the solution which best fits the requirements and dependencies
10. Implement the new product

implementation, policy, product choice, roi, software, software purchasing, solution, systems

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