Use FEAR to buy the best tools
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https://darait.co.uk/2016/01/use-fear-to-buy-the-best-tools/ - Article shared here.
What do we mean about using fear? This article is about choosing the best product or tool for your needs, when thinking about spending money or changing something big, this will give you some guidance. For now read the below words and we’ll break down what they mean and how they can help you later.
Functional – Is it fit for purpose?
Easy – Can we use this quickly?
Achieve – Does it solve our needs?
Resilient – Will the tool break?If we were to choose to knock a nail in with a screw-driver instead of a hammer, we might get it done but is it the best tool for the job? When buying new products you will find that a number of organisations large and small are choosing the wrong tools for doing the jobs they need.
When purchasing you need to have a set of questions to ask yourself before you commit to spending the money. You may have noticed the headings above spell out the word fear, normally we experience fear when we are in a dangerous situation or sense something to be hostile to us. The word fear has been chosen because we can use it as a positive check list when buying something new.
Functional
How do we know if something is functional? Ask for a demonstration of the product if you can or get a trial version to test it. Do you know someone who has worked with it before? Why not ask for their opinion? If you are new to what the product can do, can someone else who has used similar before help you test it?
If the product does not work properly, then move onto another product. There are many tools on the market to achieve what you want, don’t limit yourself to one brand or option.
Easy
Do you know long it takes to setup? Will it take lots of training? Can a new person use it quickly? What is easy for one type of person will be difficult for another, try to get different types of people in your organisation using the tool to test it, ideally the people who will use it most often.
Whether something is easy or not is subjective so get opinions on the tool from other members of your team, noting especially with how much difficulty they have from trying the tool out.
Achieve
Before you started looking for the product, you made a note of what problem you are trying to solve. Do you want things to get faster? Do you want the same product but cheaper? What is the need that makes you look for this product?
It can be very easy to look at the many features a product has and want to use them. This is how you increase costs and lose sight of the original needs. Make sure the original problem is fixed with the new tool.
Resilient
The largest companies in the world, with the biggest of budgets, will have things not working at some point. What you need to work out is how long it takes to fix the tool if that happens. No matter what you hear, assume that at some point, every tool will break down and fail. Whether it fails for a few seconds (Even Google have outages) or a number of days is something you need to review.
Do people in house know how to fix it or are they relying on a third party? Is that third party fast to fix problems? How long could you operate without that tool? Is it hours? Days? Weeks?
When buying, use Fear
Functional – Is it fit for purpose?
Easy – Can we use this quickly?
Achieve – Does it solve our needs?
Resilient – Will the tool break?The best tools for you don’t have to be the most well known brand, they do not need to be expensive or hugely complex. They don’t need millions of people using them for you to know if it works or not. Every organisation is different, what works for one might not work for another, so make sure you check what you are buying.
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Expected an article on how to emotionally manipulate coworkers into doing what I want - disappointed.
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@MattSpeller said:
Expected an article on how to emotionally manipulate coworkers into doing what I want - disappointed.
Your avatar agrees with your sentiment.
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@MattSpeller said:
Expected an article on how to emotionally manipulate coworkers into doing what I want - disappointed.
It never works
- They normally find out later what you did. -
@Breffni-Potter said:
@MattSpeller said:
Expected an article on how to emotionally manipulate coworkers into doing what I want - disappointed.
It never works
- They normally find out later what you did.Clearly we've not worked together.
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@MattSpeller said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
@MattSpeller said:
Expected an article on how to emotionally manipulate coworkers into doing what I want - disappointed.
It never works
- They normally find out later what you did.Clearly we've not worked together.
And now I'm hearing everything you post in Ron Swanson's voice. This is quite amusing.
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As for the article @Breffni-Potter. I like it. You have laid everything out very clearly for the non IT decision maker. I'm not sure if I would go with the FEAR acronym personally, but it is memorable.
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@Kelly said:
As for the article @Breffni-Potter. I like it. You have laid everything out very clearly for the non IT decision maker. I'm not sure if I would go with the FEAR acronym personally, but it is memorable.
All the best ones were taken.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
@Kelly said:
As for the article @Breffni-Potter. I like it. You have laid everything out very clearly for the non IT decision maker. I'm not sure if I would go with the FEAR acronym personally, but it is memorable.
All the best ones were taken.
I request you bacronym Uncertainty and Doubt next please
