Practical tips on SCM software selection

Filed in archive Practical Tips on December 7, 2008

Choosing the right SCM software solution, especially these days is of great importance for companies; that's why here in this post I will try to give some tips which I think can help increase the effectiveness of your decision making process; so here it comes what I have found more important:

- Go for the proof of concept: Don't be tempted by the software vendors promoting their solutions saying how companies are loving their products; go for a proof of concept before buying a solution. This also helps you get a better understanding of what the solution can do and what it can't do.

- Look at the capability maturity: For the features which are important to you, look at the capability maturity. Probably some SW vendors offer those, but how many times that capability has been implemented? Is it the newest version which includes this feature or it has existed? This helps you to get an understanding of how robust the capability is.

- Don't go for feature lists: Many SW vendors offer a lot of features; don't go for the one which is more sophisticated, go for the one which offers features necessary for you. That helps you to reduce the complexity of use for you.

- Go for optimum Total Cost of Ownership (TOC): Probably some SW vendors are cheaper in terms of licenses but the effort which is required for customization, data migration from legacy systems, etc. are higher so try to go for the one with lower TOC. This helps you reduce the cost of adoption and using the SW.

Do you agree?