4 Tips for Evaluating New Technologies

Still, IT executives can take steps to help ensure that they’re making the right decisions on investments. Here are some tips from CIOs and IT industry experts:

See Also: Emerging Technology Thinking Out of the Box

• Establish an emerging technology evaluation process that helps CIOs adopt only those technologies that will have a positive business impact. Evaluations should ask the questions: What does the company hope to achieve, and how will the hardware or application help meet that goal?

• Don’t get overly enamored of new technologies and applications without first looking at how the products might apply to the organization and its business needs. It sounds obvious enough, but many companies have gotten burned investing in products that were hyped by vendors although they weren’t well-suited for their needs, budget, IT infrastructure, culture, etc.

• When deciding on a new technology investment, don’t rely on intuition to make the call. Also, don’t make the decision in a technology vacuum. If possible, the people who will be using the products should be involved in the decision-making process, so they can express opinions about how well the technology meets their needs and whether it will help them do their jobs better.

• Before purchasing a new technology and implementing it broadly across the enterprise, if feasible, test the product on a smaller group to understand how users will accept the technology. By doing this, IT executives can also become aware of any implementation problems that might arise and how to troubleshoot them.