Super Tuesday has come and gone, and those of us in Georgia got to take part. Being a good citizen, I voted. But I have to admit I don’t always make an informed decision. For example – the judges. On what do I base my decision? I could safely vote for the unopposed candidates. When I had no clue, I used to randomly pick women or non-incumbents or anyone from my party of choice. However, in more recent years, I decided to just leave those positions un-checked.
Even more basic than that, I have trouble keeping track of what districts I’m in. And on any given day I couldn’t give you a list of who my representatives were. There’s a Congressional information website that I now keep handy. This site allows me to enter my zip code and get the applicable district numbers and elected official names.
I’ was much better informed about the 2008 US presidential candidates. I found a couple of websites which were invaluable for supporting my desire to make educated choices: WQAD candidate selection quiz and vote chooser quiz. I got different results from the two quizzes. And, recently my results for the one quiz were different from taking that same quiz a couple of months ago. So, I guess I’m being influenced by the media. I found that my heart wanted to do one thing but my head (based on quiz results) wanted to do another. Which should win?
I see an analogy here for selecting software and vendors. There’s lots of interesting choices in the 2008 election – a black African American, a woman, a Mormon, a preacher. But in the United States’ democratic system of government, the impact of electing a Republican versus a Democrat is relatively small. We have our checks and balances. But the wrong software selection could be costly: #1 in terms of your organization wasting money and #2 in terms of your personal well being. Often technology projects gone bad results in job loss or demotion. Not to mention the cost of non-compliance with SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act) or other regulations which your system or technology was supposed to address. You could go to jail!
So how to make intelligent decisions in the realm of vendor / software / technology / system selection? Noble & Associates Consulting Inc provides evaluation and selection assistance. The above mentioned candidate selection questionnaires are based on the assumption that the most important issues have been addressed. And the two quizzes differ in that respect. Similarly, before any evaluation process it’s imperative that you clarify what you’re trying to accomplish and what’s important.
We suggest a five step process:
1. Clarify goals and strategic direction
2. Understand and document requirements
3. Prioritize and rank requirements, and develop a scoring strategy
4. Map vendor/software/technology capabilities to requirements.
5. Evaluate and select.
Sandra Noble
NOBLE FINANCES
NOBLE & ASSOCIATES CONSULTING, INC
