Does human intuition have any place in evaluating software?

Uh, that would be ‘yes’.

You just spent quite a few hours and possibly days (weeks?) with the vendor’s representatives, which may include senior executives, and maybe the firm’s founder and president.

What did your intuition tell you about the people who were demonstrating the product? Were they straightforward? Did you feel like they were honestly listening to you? Did they ever say something was their fault? You developed some sort of vibe about the company, and one of the things you need to take into consideration is whether you had a group vibe about the sort of company the software vendor is.

Implementing software can feel like going to war; unexpected things happen, days are long and sometimes tense. You get tired. Knowing this, you are going to want a software company who will jump in the foxhole with you and be your partner every step of the way. One who is there to solve problems and get the job done.

How do you evaluate this vibe? You don’t. But you discuss it as a group and make sure it is one of your X-factors at the end of the evaluation effort.

I received an email last week from one of my readers wanting to know my thoughts on who the ideal person was to lead a software effort from the inside.

Specifically, they wanted to know if the person needed to have experience in software.

Answer: No

They need to have experience in your organization. They need to feel the organizational pain. They need to know what is not working as well as it should because of system deficiencies. Project team members who have little or no experience in the various software packages are less biased going in.

Some key characteristics of a good project manager are:

* Calm
* Organized
* Handles difficult people and situations well
* Slightly reluctant at having the role
* Runs a tight meeting
* Is both tough and tender hearted
* Has the respect of the majority of the people to get the job done

I also was asked: Should the position be contracted out?

Answer: Maybe.

Consider hiring a consultant to be your project manager when:

* there are no obvious candidates within your organization
* your organization is ‘tight’ on resources and you don’t want to overload staff personnel
* you want an independent third party to be your project leader

Don’t discount the value of having somebody outside your company run the engagement. On numerous occasions over the past fifteen years, clients have said to me, ‘Would you go talk to Person X? He will listen to you.’ Or, ‘You and I say the same thing but because we are paying you the high hourly rate, they listen to what you say.’

Another nice side benefit to having outsiders come in is that we don’t have to care about company politics. We do our job, get paid, and go home. Sometimes an internal project manager is stuck running the project in a manner not totally to his liking because of the realities of his particular organization.

In other words, he wants to keep his job.

And the final winner this week is Big John.

Here are his comments:

‘The number one reason software evaluation projects fail is because the evaluation team doesn’t understand their own needs list (as differentiated from their wish list). If one doesn’t understand themselves, they can’t select the best software to meet their needs.’

Right John…or said another way…the company does not go through a comprehensive process of defining their requirements.

Defining what you require in a software package is, in my opinion and experience, the hardest part of the entire evaluation effort. It is very easy to say what you don’t want. But the effort of defining your requirements is a very intentional and disciplined act. The degree of probability that you will get the best software match for your organization is directly proportional to the amount of focus and hard work that go into the requirements document.

John had a few other thoughts on the notion of requirements:

‘Having been through a few, I would say another one is functional vs sex appeal. The software vendor may have a wondering looking product, but its all presentation, and not a lot of ‘guts’ (core functionality). Many times there are CPAs or property managers in the room, looking at the screen, and they have no idea regarding the DB design, coding, expandibility, ease of customization, etc. This sure was true when windows first came out, and new windows apps were easily winning over more functional DOS apps.’

Yep, remember going through that in the mid to late 90s. Bravo big guy…give me a call when you are ready. It’s been a while since we talked.

For the uninitiated, sitting through a software product demonstration can be an exhilarating, but ultimately unsatisfying, experience.

The exhilaration comes from seeing all the terrific technologies out there…very cool stuff that can be seductive. Visions of pushing one button on your keyboard that pulls up multi-colored graphs…that give you a huge ‘ah-hah’ and solves ALL of your business problems.

Seasoned software sales folks are very adept at putting a software timepiece in front of you…and swaying it gently. You are getting very sleepy…

When you ‘wake up’, you get that unsettled feeling…like maybe you’ve been had. You really haven’t…you just have realized that a lot of what you may have seen doesn’t solve your problems. It’s just neat stuff – that has nothing to do with your problems or the pain you are experiencing.

And it’s not their fault…it’s your’s.

Because you let them control the demo.

Because you don’t communicate your business requirements.

Because you don’t send demonstration ‘rules’ to the vendor prior to their arrival.

Because you don’t prepare demonstration scripts.

And, because you don’t have a evaluation methodology.

Without the proper kind of training…this is not a fair fight. The software vendor with the ‘best’ salesperson should not necessarily win your business. The software product with the best fit should.

Think about it.