Description
Book SynopsisThis practical book presents a proven decision-making process to help IT and business managers select the off-the-shelf software product that best fits the needs of their organisation, whether in the commercial or public sector. Offering a structured approach to managing stakeholders, requirements and candidate IT vendors, this practical 'how-to' guide will help deliver a rigorous, defensible decision within an aggressive timescale.
Trade ReviewMartin is the guru of robust decision making. The process he describes in this book combines intuition with rigorous, transparent logic. Good choices are easy to explain, sell and defend whilst spurious bias is left with nowhere to hide. -- Mike Berners-Lee * Small World Consulting Ltd *
Martin's book builds on his clear, detailed understanding of assessing and selecting off-the-shelf IT and provides a rigorous, practical method to get the solution needed. -- David Nickson
I've long experience of how newcomers react to the selection method in this book - they like it a lot. I'm very confident that readers will quickly appreciate the benefits and how to apply it to their projects. -- Professor David Brown
Table of ContentsIntroduction - purpose and principles
1 Introduction to off-the-shelf solutions
2 Talent management - supplier psychology
3 Initiation - shaping and authorising the project
4 Requirements analysis - capturing the organisationalneeds
5 Requirements document - documenting and agreeingrequirements
6 Trawling the marketplace - establishing the longlist
7 Assessing longlist candidates - selecting the shortlistusing the RFI
8 Detailed evaluation - assessing the shortlistedcandidates
9 Scoring - establishing degree of fit and ranking
10 Demonstrations - proving the best fit
11 Reference sites - real customer feedback
12 Contracts - negotiation and agreements
13 Implementation - preparing the ground
14 Viewpoints by theme
15 Concluding - recommendations and resources
Appendices
*OTSIS extras - available at http://www.decisionevaluation.co.uk/otsis-extras/
