Vendor and Tool Evaluation

Definition

Vendor and tool evaluation is the environments engineering task of evaluating the vendor organizations and their tools prior to selecting the tools to be deployed to the environments.

Objectives

The typical objectives of the vendor and tool evaluation task are to:

• Evaluate the potential vendor organizations that may supply the tools that to be deployed to the environments:
  • Market Share
  • Vendor Reliability
  • Vendor Longevity
  • Product Support
  • Legal Restrictions
• Evaluate the tools that may be deployed on the environments:
  • Functionality
  • Usability
  • Reliability
  • Maturity
  • Cost
  • Portability to the various environments
  • Interoperability with other relevant tools

Preconditions

The vendor and tool evaluation task can typically begin when the following preconditions hold:

• The environments team is adequately staffed and trained in vendor and tool evaluation.
• The environments needs assessment task is mostly complete.

Completion Criteria

The vendor and tool evaluation task is typically complete when the following postconditions hold:

• TBD

Steps

The vendor and tool evaluation task typically involves the following teams performing the following steps in an iterative, incremental, parallel, and time-boxed manner:

• Environments Team:
  • TBD

Techniques

The vendor and tool evaluation task can typically be performed using the following techniques:

• TBD

Work Products

The vendor and tool evaluation task results in the production of all or part of the following work products:

• Environments Set:
  • Product Selection Report

Guidelines

• TBD