Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe: Software Selection, Its Pitfalls, and How to Avoid Them
Hugh R. Alley - August 22, 2007

The childhood rhyme "Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo" was useful when, as a child, you were choosing an ice cream flavor. But this simple counting-out game is not likely to give you great results when you are about to spend several hundred thousand dollars or more for a new piece of software. In my experience though, the decision processes of many organizations are not a great deal more sophisticated. Criteria are identified and software is assessed, but what criteria are selected and how the assessments are weighted is not clear. There is a sense that, at the end of the day, everything is thrown up in the air with the hope that there will be a clear result when it all lands...