Software Selection: Picking the Path to Success and avoiding the Landmines of Failure

Having sold and implemented as much software as I have and having been on both sides of the equation (buyer and vendor) there are a number of secrets to success and landmines of failure that I've seen along the way.

First based on experience with 80 plus ERP and CRM implementations I would say that a healthy software selection process includes all of the following...

1) Development of a Business Strategy. Understanding of what you want to get out of a solution and where you want the business to go. This should be crafted in your own image and not based on what a consultant tells you is best practice. Adopting your competitors best practice doesn't differentiate you in the market.

2) Business Process Re-engineering. If you are spending all the time and effort to put a new business system in you should really consider it as an opportunity to reevaluate your business processes and get some of those efficiencies. Again look to your own business and outside of your industry rather than to your competitors for the processes you want to adopt.

3) Develop a Solution Blueprint. By this point you are likely to have an idea of the technology you want to deploy. You should construct a high level blueprint of how you want your solution to work based on your business strategy and the business processes you want it to support.

4) Conduct a Proper Fit/Gap. Understand where the software you have selected can support your Solution Blueprint and where it can't. Identify early and up front what is configuration vs. customization. Understand the trade offs you may need to make.

5) Conduct a Scoping Assessment. Evaluate your options. Understand the trade offs between cost, scope and timing.

6) Build the Business Case and revisit often. Validate it with the business users and through benchmarks. Come back to it frequently and often. The Business Case is not just there to justify the project but it is there to determine whether you have achieved success and what success is.

At what point you engage your vendor or a consultancy in this process is up to you. My personal experience is that the earlier the better. It allows the vendors and or consultancies to better understand your needs up front and makes for a better marriage latter on.

The "Landmines of Failure" in a software selection are...

1) Lack of Business Engagement. Software projects sponsored by IT that are in search of a project sponsor rarely work.

2) Not Developing a Solution Blueprint. This is a critical step that people often leave out. It often leads to misscoped projects and frustrated vendors who chase around changing project goals and objectives.

3) Not relating the Solution Blueprint back to the Business Strategy. If you are not supporting the business strategic goals then why are doing the project in the first place.

4) Crystallizing existing Business Processes. I once worked on a project where the customer insisted on rebuilding the UI of the solution so that it looked identical to the previous solution. This cost them millions of dollars. As silly as it sounds companies often pay a lot of money and end up with what they had in the first place. Don't fall into this trap.

5) Adopting the Competitors Best Practices and/or changing your business to fit the Software. A friend of mine is a PhD for a University in Queensland. He did an analysis once that showed that the companies who are more successfully are the ones who look outside their industry and look to their own strategy for best practices not to their competitors. An example of this is a leading Financial Services Firm whom I worked with that adopted Lean Manufacturing as a way to reduce their operating costs by hundreds of millions. If they had looked to their competition they wouldn't have been as successful.

The "Path to Success" in a Software Selection Process...

1) Developing a Business Case. A restatement of the above. The best business cases are built by the business and validated against external benchmarks. They are revisited through out the project and worked into the goals for the IT department for the project. The contract with the vendor/ consultancy may actually incorporate the business case goals into the contract.

2) Hiring the right Consultancy. The consultancy needs to understand your business and the technology. Having one without the other usually doesn't work. Also just because they have a brand name or a previous relationship with you does not necessarily mean they will be successful.

3) Understand how the Software can support the business objectives without a wholesale rewrite. I've seen this quite a few times where a business goes through a software selection only to in the end rewrite much of the software package they've purchased. Either because they didn't know what they were buying or because they haven't done a good job of exploiting the software to it's full potential.

4) Recognise the relationship between Cost, Scope and Time. Referred to as the Iron Triangle in Project Management circles. Project Management Theory tells you that you can two of these three but not all three. Some sacrifices must be made. Make sure the business understand this and all the options and what they mean.

If you pick the right "Path to Success" and avoid the "Land mines of Failure" your software selection process can be a much happier one indeed.