Evaluation & Selection Of An IT Solution - Art Or Science the Scientific Art Of Evaluating & Selecting An IT Solution
With diverse industry experience across various verticals, Hadkar has been managing various functions across the entire value chainEvaluating an IT solution- well this is what we have been doing all our life!!! As IT professionals, we have been involved to varying degress in this evaluation/selection process depending on our role or position in the organisation. Post which we get ourselves entrenched heads-on in implementing these solutio. we all have done this multiple times. Then why would you want to spend time reading this further .
Well, what I realised over these multiple implementations is that although we have a structured methodology in place for implementing these solutions, a quantitative robust methodology for evaluating these solutions is not that prevalent. I am sure each one of us would have found a way around this as well, and hence I thought it would be good to share the methodology currently adopted by us and initiate a dialogue around the same. May be we all can collectievly come up with something enriching for all of us. So here it goes ....
Evaluation Methotodology/The Evaluation Template
The IT solution evlaution is no longer a "lone IT Warrior" job. With the advent of "cloud solutions", we now have active participation and involvement from multiple stake holders across various functions in these evaluations. We have all encountered situations during these evaluations where-in we get diverse feed back from these various stake holders. While all of that makes complete sense in the prevalent context, the diversity of the feedback makes it difficult to reach a conclusive decision. There are obvious trade offs that get contemplated but the enormity of the same (or even the lack of it) is usually not evident or understood in these conversations. The basic idea hence is to convert these qualitiative
inputs into quantitative ones and help reach a conclusive decision.
With this objective in mind, we belive the following simple "4 Step Approach" helps reach a quantifiable decision,
1. Make a list of parameters which you consider to be very important for evalaution of the solution. To make it easier for all stakeholders ideally the list should not have more than a dozen points.
2. Assign weightages to each of these points depending on its relevance/importance to the current solution evalaution. You can decide to assign equal weightage to all the points as well, but usually it makes sense to invest time here as it can prove to a deal maker or breaker later. Also its very very important that this assignment of weightages is being done in consensus with all stakeholders.
3. Get each stakeholder to fill out their score against each parameter for all the solutions under evaluation.
a. This needs to be done indivually first
b. And then jointly by all stake holders in group, where in at the end of the session, we have one consesus score for each paramter and for each solution under evaluation. This churn of thoughts is very important and the most critical part of this exercise. The vigour with which this exercise is undertaken will utimately determine the robustness of the decision.
It is also very important to document the points / reasons discussed and debated across each point bases which the decision to assign particular score to the solution has been reached.
4. Final step is calulating the weighted average and getting the scores for each solution.
As you notice here, the quantifiable scores clearly bring out the winner. Although I have taken an example where 1 winner is easily identifiable, you will many a times encounter situations where the diffrence in scores might not be that high. This is where assigning the right weight ages plays a very crucial role.
For better adaptability of this template, you can purne/modify the paramter list in tune with your business/company scenario and I am sure this will really help you adopt a more quantifiable approach.
I remember in my early career days, during my interaction with Sr. Management team, we were thrown with the question,
"How do I know that we have selected the best solution?
"I am very confident that the artful application of this template will surely help you convey that
"You have definetely selected the right solution !!!
With this objective in mind, we belive the following simple "4 Step Approach" helps reach a quantifiable decision,
1. Make a list of parameters which you consider to be very important for evalaution of the solution. To make it easier for all stakeholders ideally the list should not have more than a dozen points.
2. Assign weightages to each of these points depending on its relevance/importance to the current solution evalaution. You can decide to assign equal weightage to all the points as well, but usually it makes sense to invest time here as it can prove to a deal maker or breaker later. Also its very very important that this assignment of weightages is being done in consensus with all stakeholders.
3. Get each stakeholder to fill out their score against each parameter for all the solutions under evaluation.
a. This needs to be done indivually first
b. And then jointly by all stake holders in group, where in at the end of the session, we have one consesus score for each paramter and for each solution under evaluation. This churn of thoughts is very important and the most critical part of this exercise. The vigour with which this exercise is undertaken will utimately determine the robustness of the decision.
The basic idea hence is to convert these qualitiative inputs into quantitative ones and help reach a conclusive decision
It is also very important to document the points / reasons discussed and debated across each point bases which the decision to assign particular score to the solution has been reached.
4. Final step is calulating the weighted average and getting the scores for each solution.
As you notice here, the quantifiable scores clearly bring out the winner. Although I have taken an example where 1 winner is easily identifiable, you will many a times encounter situations where the diffrence in scores might not be that high. This is where assigning the right weight ages plays a very crucial role.
For better adaptability of this template, you can purne/modify the paramter list in tune with your business/company scenario and I am sure this will really help you adopt a more quantifiable approach.
I remember in my early career days, during my interaction with Sr. Management team, we were thrown with the question,
"How do I know that we have selected the best solution?
"I am very confident that the artful application of this template will surely help you convey that
"You have definetely selected the right solution !!!
