Every project has formally or informally defined decision criteria. These are often categorised further as Technical, Commercial and Legal Decision Criteria.
Technical decision criteria (TDC)
Here we talk about criteria to understand the feasibility. Are the use cases covered by the potential solution? Does it comply with the existing infrastructure and, if so, how does integrate?
How easy is to work with and does it fulfill the standards of the Enterprise Architecture?
Typically this TDC will be validated in a Proof of Concept or some sort of Technical Decision Making Process.
Business/Commercial Decision Criteria (BDC)
The most common BDC is Alignment to Budget, but nowadays corporations are very much driven by Return on Investment – sometimes in less than 12 months to justify the investment.
Further, there are different types of budgets like capital expense (CAPEX) or operation expense (OPEX). Some clients have huge OPEX reduction campaigns or have certain cash-flow requirements that drive the decision criteria.
Thoroughly understanding and aligning yourself to the clients needs will show great flexibility and influence the decision towards your offering.
Question to ask:
- What are the technical criteria to make a decision?
- How do you calculate the ROI for this project to justify the investment?