Lynda Moulton describes her tutorial
Navigating the Selection and Procurement of a Search Software Product, Lynda Moulton, Lead Analyst, Enterprise Search, Gilbane Group
Software procurement is a perilous business exercise and you won’t find many courses on how to make it a successful experience. From the vantage point of a twenty plus year veteran vendor (since before software was an industry), I have seen my share of bad processes but also enough successful ones to feel qualified to help you steer a better path.
You know the old adage, haste makes waste; nothing could be a more characteristic cause of software selection disasters. It isn’t so much the swiftness of the process for selection but the short cycle on several key elements that can lead to disaster. This session will help you understand where the time of a selection team is best spent and where you can short circuit some real prolonging time wasters. You will learn that the best solutions often come through:
- a streamlining of needs assessment
- a focus on a few targeted products
- a clear determination of the resources you have to implement the selected product
- identifying “drop-dead” issues
- setting realistic expectations
A good part of the session will be interactive. You will have a chance to get a lot of your questions answered and have your toughest problems addressed through dialogue with me and the rest of the participants. In the end what you need most is the confidence to be able to proceed with a process in which you, and not the vendor, are in charge of the outcome. When you begin with firm ground rules and a method for making choices decisively, you will have a much better shot at achieving solid business success.
