[< 2 min read] By Garth Wardle
Executives know what tech “worked before”, but they also have to sign-off on tech that will work from now and into the future.
Tech must do much more than just ‘work’, the tech-stack has to deliver an actual competitive advantage, or the company falls behind its competitors.
Perform these 4 steps to make better software and technology decisions:
- Interview the people within your company that perform the work and ask them what they believe would help them with their responsibilities.
Start with the roles with direct impact on your most important customers and work back from there.
Also, find out what parts of the current tech-stack work well for them, and what does not.
- Use the answers from #1 to make a checklist of features, interoperability and workflows the new systems must have, and would also be nice to have.
- Go to the market and score vendors based on this priority checklist.
- Shortlist the vendors. Insist on references. Interview the workers at these reference companies. Don’t interview the execs. Talk to the people who use the systems every day.
Step 4 is the secret sauce. Its where you find the dirt. Real dirt and the “pay dirt”.
For #4 to really work, you need to make sure vendor references are similar companies to yours.
By similar I mean, same industry, similar in size and culture – and they must have a near identical tech-stack.
If finding references like this sounds too hard, then you are not ready to “choose your vendors correctly”.
Would you prefer your organization or your competitors organization operating another 5 years with the wrong tech vendors?