Software ?Shopping List’ Key To Avoiding Disappointment

My son Luke was about five years old when he watched me cut my finger while chopping an onion. Using a very serious voice he said, “Dad, if you don’t be careful, you will hurt yourself.”

I have noticed a couple of instances of failed software projects have recently made the news. The companies involved were suing the software vendors for a lot of money. Will these companies win in court? Perhaps, but they can never recoup the real damage resulting from the failed implementation. Luke’s words come to mind:  “…if you don’t be careful, you will hurt yourself.”

How do you avoid hurting your company with a failed software project?

Packaged software projects have two primary phases. The first phase involves shopping for and purchasing the software. The second phase involves implementing the software. How well the second phase goes is very dependent on how the first phase was executed.

In my previous column we explored some key process points of shopping for and purchasing of software. Failure to follow these process points tends to lead to software struggles. In both cases that I’ve read about it would appear that these process points were ignored and glossed over.

The typical mistakes that companies make in buying software are shopping without a “shopping list” and putting reliance on what they see in the vendor demos. I strongly believe that the development of a detailed “shopping list” that leads to a detailed “scripted demo” by the software vendor is necessary to put a company in the best position to make an informed decision on software.

Am I saying that software vendors are dishonest? Not at all. Software vendors are typically very careful and skilled in how they present their product.

The problem tends to be with the people that are making the purchase.

When purchasers view a software demonstration outside of the context of a “shopping list” they tend to be biased to develop a favorable view of the software. Skilled software demonstrators are able to present the software at its best and hide its flaws. They observe the reactions of the people they are presenting to regarding functionality and follow those reactions to feed enthusiasm for their product.

Without the context of the “shopping list,” it becomes easy for the purchasers to get very excited about things that may not matter at all to their business.

As purchasers view software demonstrations they tend to focus primarily on functionality that they do not have in their present systems. An assumption is made that the system being demonstrated will do all the functions currently needed for their business in ways that will be “better.” Purchasers’ minds seem biased to a, “grass is always greener,” viewpoint.

As the excitement grows towards a particular software product, purchasers tend to lack perspective as to “degree of difficultly” involved in using the software in their business. Many times business software contains much more advanced business process functionality than the company is currently using or needs. A large gap between the software and the current business process needs leads to greater difficultly in implementation.

When this flawed process results in a software purchase, disappointment seems to be the usual outcome.

Business software enables business processes. Detailed understanding of a company’s business processes is necessary in order to develop a “shopping list” of needs. While a company may gloss over this prior to making a software purchase, it can’t gloss over this when implementing the software. Eventually the matching of a company’s business processes to the software will occur.

As process owners dig into the software and unpleasant discoveries are made an erosion of confidence of the staff in both the software and the purchasers of the software results. Management’s instinct is to blame resistance to change and push harder on the implementation.

The unfortunate result is that a lot of money is wasted and the real needs of the company are seldom met.

A failed software project begins with a poor software purchasing process. The software vendors tend not to be the ones at fault. 

Steve Hankins is CEO and co-founder of Accio.US, a technology company providing advisory and management services for small to medium-sized businesses. He may be reached at [email protected].