Decision rights before tools

Vendor selections fail in a predictable way. The demo is strong. The contract is signed. Then every exception — a field, a discount, an approval — climbs back to the same unresolved argument about who owns the process. The software did not create that argument. It scheduled it.

The rights to write down

Before a shortlist, name the decisions the system will touch. Who may change a price, a customer status, a priority, a data definition. What evidence is required. What can be reversed, and by whom. If two executives cannot agree on that page, they are not ready to agree on a product.

Then the tool

Only then does fit matter: does this product encode those rights without a year of customization, who will operate it after the integrator leaves, and what is the exit if it does not. A selection memo that skips the rights page is a purchase, not a decision.