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Effectively reviewing and replacing your tech
Replacing technology can be daunting. How do you begin to define what your museum needs asks Associate Supplier, Rod Barlow.
With technology changing so rapidly, it essential that organisations regularly review their technology choices to ensure they remain relevant. Funding is limited, so a solid business case for any change is vital.
Project outcomes
Project outcomes are the changes that occur following the implementation of a new technology. They must be well thought through, evidence based, data driven and measurable during and at the end of the project. Adopting a what, why, how format will clearly set out what is defined as the outcome for the immediate and long-term success of any technology project.
User stories
Writing user stories are a useful tool to review your current processes and explore opportunities for improvement. These should be outcome focused and describe key business processes that the organisation needs to undertake and operational challenges that need to be resolved. These user stories will demonstrate what is.
- Important to us.
- Important to our future.
- Unique to our organisation.
- Complicated for us/a current challenge that needs solving.
- Focus on both the your staff/organisational user and your customer’s needs.
Business requirements
Turning these stories into a list of business requirements ensures that all the needs are documented, and forms an essential part of any tender documentation, and should be scored in priority order. This set of requirements can also be used as a matrix to score the fit of any solution you are looking at.
Selection metrics
There are usually many technology solutions available in the market for a particular set of business requirements. To select the best solution for your museum, you must compare these solutions on a variety of metrics, some of which are defined below:
- Cost: licensing fees, support costs, cost of implementation.
- Features: Functionality offered by the technology solution which addresses the business needs.
- Support: Support available before, during, and after implementation.
- Return on investment (ROI): This is a particularly important metric for technology solutions that automates or improves a business process.
- Total cost of ownership (TCO): This includes all the direct and indirect costs, including onboarding costs, maintenance, and support costs, training costs, etc.
Summary
When choosing new technology, the intention is to attract a group of ‘A’ list suppliers whose solutions will fit your requirement. There is a real skill in producing tender documentation that describes not only the nuances of your organisation but clearly defines your business needs, so that you and any potential technology provider can quickly evaluate whether their solution will meet your functionality needs, and is within your budget.
Click here to find out how Rod Barlow Consulting can support your museum’s tech challenges>>