Score the software on your workload, not the tour.

Question: adopt the product, adopt a thinner subset, keep the current tool, or decline this cycle. Owner: the operational lead who will live with the workflow. Stakeholders: security, IT, and the people who will use it daily.

A feature matrix copied from the website is context. The options are products you could actually put in front of this team.

Criteria: time to value with this team, workflow fit, operational load, and whether a proof used your data. Evidence required: a reproduced path, not a recorded demo. Known unknowns: admin work after week one and an exit you have not tried.

Material risks include a product that wins the tour and loses the first real ticket.

Decision Hinges: whether the proof used your constraints, and who gets paged. Required approvals: Decision Owner plus security when data leaves the current boundary.

What could reverse the Verdict: a failed proof, a hidden admin load, or a missing integration you still have to staff by hand. Outcome review: after the first production week, not after the kickoff.

Champion defends the preferred product. Challenger attacks the unreproduced path. Inspector marks brochure capability. Craftsman tests whether the course can actually work. Judge scores this team, not the vendor’s happy path.

A checked feature box is not proof it works here. Use the vendor-selection template when the fight is commercial stay-versus-switch.

Champion and Challenger test the case, Inspector checks the evidence, and Judge records the Verdict for the Decision Owner.

Adopt product A for this workflow, keep the current tool, or decline until a proof uses your data. The recorded demo stays a claim. If the Verdict favors A and security blocks the data path, both stay on the record.