Name the problem before you look at anything
Most selections start with a product somebody liked. The requirements are then written to describe it.
Read the guideA method · not a ranking
Most of the decision is made before anyone sees a demo
A method, not a ranking. How to work out what you actually need, narrow a field of vendors down to three, run a trial that surfaces the real problems, understand what it will cost over five years, and tell afterwards whether it worked.
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the number a shortlist should get down to
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years the cost should be calculated over
30
guides in the archive
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rankings, scores or sponsored placements
Sections
The order the work should happen in
Five sections following the sequence a selection actually goes through — and the order matters, because most bad purchases are made by starting at step three.
Requirements
Working out what the problem actually is, and what would have to be true for any product to solve it.
6 guidesShortlisting
Getting from forty products to three, without a feature matrix that proves whatever you already believed.
6 guidesTrials
Running a pilot that finds the problems while you can still walk away.
6 guidesCost
Pricing models, the costs that are not in the price, contract terms and what happens at renewal.
6 guidesAdoption
Rollout, training, and the uncomfortable question of whether the thing you bought actually changed anything.
6 guidesStart here
Six guides worth reading first
The pieces that most often change how a small team runs a selection.
Requirements that actually filter
A list of forty requirements that every serious product satisfies has not narrowed anything. It has just taken three weeks to write.
Read the guideGetting from forty products to three
The narrowing is where the decision is really made, and it is usually done by whichever vendor markets hardest.
Read the guideDesigning a pilot that can fail
A trial that cannot produce a no is not a trial. It is a familiarisation exercise with a purchase order attached.
Read the guideThe five-year number
Subscriptions are compared monthly and lived with for years. The monthly figure is usually the smaller part of the total.
Read the guideMeasuring whether it actually worked
The success criteria were written at the start precisely so this question could be answered. Almost nobody goes back and answers it.
Read the guideNo scores, no league tables, no sponsored placement
This site does not review products or rank them. Ranking software for somebody else’s organisation is not possible: the right answer depends on constraints only you know. What can be shared is the method — and the parts of it that people skip.
Products get named occasionally as examples of a category rather than as recommendations. One example is Monitask, a time-tracking product; a mention does not imply ownership, sponsorship or affiliation.
Browse the full archive of 30 guides in the index.
For a broader independent reference on technology risk, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework provides a public framework.