Freeze the buyer’s criteria before the second demo.

Question: stay, switch, dual-run, or decline. Owner: usually procurement plus the operational lead who will live with the tool. Stakeholders: security, legal, finance, and the team that will be paged.

Options belong on the card only if the organization could actually execute them this cycle. A vendor that cannot clear security review is context, not a contestant.

Criteria: implementation in your constraints, exit cost, observed support, residual security exposure, and price. Price remains a criterion, not the only one.

Evidence required: a source for each load-bearing capability, a named implementation owner, and an exit path someone has read. Known unknowns: unreproduced benchmarks, unpublished incident history, and contract terms still in redline.

Decision Hinges are usually implementation time with this team, lock-in, and a security claim Inspector cannot attach to a source. Required approvals: Decision Owner, security, and whoever signs the contract.

What could reverse the Verdict: a failed proof in your environment, a material contract change, or a new exit cost. Outcome review: after go-live and again at the first renewal window.

Champion can take the leading vendor. Challenger attacks implementation and exit. Scout looks for current incidents you can verify. Inspector marks brochure uptime as a claim. Judge can refuse a strong winner.

A checked feature box is not proof the product works here.

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

Vendor A, Vendor B, or stay. Freeze scoring before the second demo. Brochure uptime stays a claim until a source supports the number you are buying. If the Verdict prefers B and Legal cannot accept B’s terms, the Human Decision can still be A with the override written down.