Draft for Tamir's review. Not published.
Fix the criteria before the favorites arrive
Ask each group to state its business needs without naming vendors. Separate the capabilities everyone must have from local preferences, and name the executive who decides the trade-offs nobody agrees on.
When someone has a relationship with a candidate, record it and exclude that person from the decision. Run the same process for the recommended vendor as for the others. The process protects the person who recommended it as much as you.
Test on your conditions, beyond the demo
Ask what each score rests on: a demo, a test on your own data, a reference call or a document. Test under real conditions, such as your own claims, dense city streets or the actual systems an interface connects to. Passing a format test can still hide two suppliers who read the same data differently.
Compare total cost over the system's life, including implementation, support, upgrades, exit and the skills you must keep in-house. Check data export, interfaces and the right to modify. With open source, judge the integrator's depth as hard as you would judge a vendor.
Depending on your seat
If you're on the board and receive a recommendation with a scoring table, ask what the losing finalist did better and why that mattered less. Ask who implements and on what terms, and what the exit looks like. If a board member's contact is a candidate, ask for an independent review of the evaluation record.
If you're the owner and a contractor is choosing a system you'll run for decades, take back the decisions you'll live with. Data access, support terms and the freedom to change vendor are yours to set. The contractor can install what you specify.
What to check before you decide
- Write the evaluation criteria before any vendor is assessed, and share them with whoever approves the choice.
- Ask anyone with a relationship to a candidate to declare it, and exclude them from deliberation and vote.
- Ask what evidence each score rests on, and test the finalists on your own data and operating conditions.
- Ask what the losing finalist did better and how that was weighed.
- Estimate total cost over the system's life, including implementation, support, upgrades, exit and in-house skills.
- Compare the options on data export, interfaces, exit terms and data ownership.
- Record the criteria, the results and the basis for the decision in the minutes.
Questions people ask
Management recommends a vendor and a director is connected to a competitor, how does the board make a defensible decision?
Record the conflict, exclude the director from the decision, and base the decision on an evaluation record with criteria set before the comparison. An independent review of that record gives the board a defensible basis regardless of the relationship. It depends on the governance rules and on whether the evaluation record exists.
Board received a core system recommendation between two finalists with a scoring table, what should we ask before approving?
Ask what the scores rest on: demonstrations on the insurer's own products and data, reference calls, contract terms, and total cost over the system's life. Ask what the losing vendor did better and why that mattered less. Then ask about the implementation partner and the exit. It depends on whether the scoring included hands-on tests and on how the contract terms compare.
Can directors rely on tender criteria written by a bidder's adviser?
Separate the business justification of each criterion from the adviser relationship. Reliance depends on disclosed interests, defensible requirements, and procurement and legal review of the process.
Our construction contractor is choosing the plant's monitoring system, should the owner take that decision back?
Yes for the parts the owner will live with: data ownership, access, support terms and the ability to change vendor. The contractor can install what you specify. Set the requirements now and let the contractor meet them. It depends on how far the contractor's procurement has gone and on what the construction contract says about owner approvals.
A board member recommended a vendor for our new system, how do I evaluate it properly without offending him?
Run the same process for every candidate, including the recommended one, and tell the director that is what protects him as well as you. Document the criteria before the evaluation and the results after. It depends on whether the director has an interest in the vendor, which must be declared, and on what your governance rules require.
How do we choose a vendor when subsidiaries back different favourites?
Agree the shared decision criteria before comparing favourites. Selection depends on common needs, justified local variation, and explicit ownership of the trade-offs.
Open source platform with local integrator or commercial product for a public system, how do we choose?
Open source removes license dependence and adds dependence on whoever maintains your installation, so judge the integrator's depth and the project's community as hard as you judge the vendor. Compare total cost over the system's life, including support, upgrades and the skills your body must keep. It depends on how many integrators can support the open-source option and on what your procurement rules say about support guarantees.
What interoperability evidence should we require before selecting hospital software?
Test clinical meaning as well as message structure. Compatibility depends on units, code mappings, missing values, and how corrections are represented between the actual systems.
How should we compare passenger information vendors under real Israeli operating conditions?
Separate location errors from prediction errors. Selection depends on performance under actual street conditions, route deviations, and stale or ambiguous vehicle positions.
How I can help with this decision
- Ask or talk (Free)
- I give my view on how to handle the conflicts in process and what the evaluation record must show. I name the scoring items that usually hide the risk.
- Review (Pay if it was worth it)
- I write an independent review of the evaluation, the candidates and the recommended contract, for the record. I recommend to approve, set conditions or re-evaluate.
- Retain (When it makes sense)
- I stay available through delivery to review the chosen vendor against the criteria it won on.