« Product choices

Recently, on my last project we had to make some product choices (which web server, which application server, etc.).

That’s how I proceeded.

• I wrote down on an a spreadsheet all the key criteria for the product choices.
• I picked up three-four products for each product category.
• I’ve used only three levels of goodness of each product in each category: red = bad, yellow = ok, green = good. All the levels were relative to the other products choices and not absolute.
• We arranged a meeting, discussing the colours on the spreadsheet, at the meeting there was a representative of all the team roles (Scrum Master, Product Owner, some Team members, Architect)
• We cleaned up the spreadsheet and we send it to the client with more information on the suggested products.
• The process was time boxed, it took in total less than two ideal days and it was a task in the project backlog.

That’s how the spreadsheet looked like: