Software purchasing -- have you created a vendor comparison document?

[Blythe Ebersole]

I'm doing some research to learn about how people go through the process of choosing and purchasing service desk software. One thing I've heard a few times, is that it's common to create a document to keep track of different requirements and score vendors. 

Does your team create a comparison document when deciding on new software? How do you go about putting it together? And, if you have an example, I'd love to see it. :) And, if you're not comfortable sharing it here, you can send it privately. 

[Mikael Sandberg]

I do, and I have used either Word, PowerPoint or Confluence to do it (the last comparison I did). Here is an example of what it looked like when I used PowerPoint to document the requirements and compare the different tools:

[Blythe Ebersole]

Thanks for sharing @Mikael Sandberg, this is helpful! I like how simple it is to take in the information. You mentioned that this was a PowerPoint doc-- was a team involved in filling it out?

I'm also curious about how you came up with the list of 9 criteria. Was it brainstorming, research, documenting current gaps, something else? 

[Mikael Sandberg]

@Blythe Ebersole the PowerPoint was put together as an executive summary after we had done our evaluation. The picture above just shows a subset of them, in total we had about 60 or so different ones. The team put together a list of requirements that we wanted the new tool to cover, and it consisted of things that we liked about the existing tool, current gaps and things that we wished the new tool could provide. Some of the wish list requirements where based on research that we had already done during initial trials of the tools. We then went back and did a deeper evaluation of the tools, and the result was the input to the matrix in the PowerPoint.