For me, agile software selection is the only method that really works for evaluating software successfully and efficiently. In this article, I will once again present the decisive advantages of this methodology in a compact way.
If you have not yet dealt with agile software selection, I will give you a brief outline of the workflow below:
The agile software selection is divided into three phases:
- Developing and writing the most important user stories together with the relevant stakeholders >>1. Die Stakeholder und ihre Stories)–>
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Use these user stories as a basis for the supplier tender and partner selection
3 steps to agile software selection – 2. the right choice of partner -
Creation of a proof of concept with “hands on” for the stakeholders and finally the final selection
>>3. Proof of Concept)–>
But what exactly makes agile software selection so successful?
Success clearly lies in stakeholder participation – right from the start of the process!
Each of us probably knows the famous quote by Henry Ford:
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses!”
Was Henry Ford right? In our case I can say quite clearly: “NO!
In software evaluation, it is essential to involve the stakeholders in the process right from the start.
By working out the most important user stories together, the stakeholders are encouraged to formulate their requirements and wishes themselves and thus to think them through. When writing the user stories, you are “forced”, so to speak, to deal intensively with the topic.
The right to help shape things gives you a good feeling!
Almost more important, however, is the psychological aspect:
Stakeholders are involved in the process from the very beginning and can shape the evaluation process themselves. This gives them the feeling that they have a say in the process and that their wishes will be heard and taken into account.
This very decisive feature will also simplify the project many times over in the later integration process of the selected software.
If stakeholders are not involved in the selection process from the beginning, there is almost always the feeling that you are being “presented” with something that you are supposed to work with every day, but for which you have not actively decided yourself.
One therefore feels “externally determined” and will immediately take a defensive stance at the first problems that arise with the software, according to the motto “I was not asked during the selection process…”.
This defensive attitude will not only give a product owner sleepless nights, but it can also extremely endanger the success of the project.
If the stakeholders have been a productive, creative part of the process from the beginning, they will not have to face these “accusations”.
It is important to make one thing very clear:
Stakeholder participation is not intended to distribute or shift responsibility.
It should not be a justification if a product owner makes mistakes. Rather, it is about involving the most important users in order to achieve better project success. The control of the overall process and also the decision which user stories are so important that they are used for the selection process still lies with the product owner. It is his task to spar with the stakeholders and to formulate the stories correctly.
With these decisive advantages, it should once again have become clear that agile software selection is the right methodology for successfully evaluating software of any kind!
If you have any questions, requests or suggestions, I look forward to hearing from you!