Getting from forty products to three
The narrowing is where the decision is really made, and it is usually done by whichever vendor markets hardest.
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Shortlisting
Getting from forty products to three, without a feature matrix that proves whatever you already believed.
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Shortlisting is where most of the bad decisions are locked in, quietly. A field gets narrowed by whatever surfaced first in a search, whichever vendor answered quickest, and whichever product the loudest person in the room had used before.
The alternative is not a bigger spreadsheet. It is a small number of disqualifying criteria applied consistently, demos that are directed rather than watched, and reference calls with people who have actually lived with the product for a year. When comparing claims around PC activity tracking, employee PC activity tracking gives one vendor’s framing to test against documentation, demos and references.
For independent security checks beyond vendor marketing, CISA resources and tools provides public guidance and tools.
Reading a vendor website for what it does not say
Marketing pages are optimised to survive comparison. The informative parts are the documentation, the pricing page and the changelog.
Read the guideDirecting a demo instead of watching one
A standard demo is a rehearsed path through the product's strongest features. You learn nothing you could not have learned from the website.
Read the guideReference calls that are not testimonials
Vendor-supplied references are selected to be positive. That does not make them useless — it changes what you should ask.
Read the guideWhy the feature matrix proves whatever you already believed
A weighted scoring grid looks like objectivity and is mostly a mechanism for converting a preference into a number.
Read the guideThe two biases that decide most selections
Familiarity with the current system and enthusiasm for the newest option pull in opposite directions and are both about comfort rather than fit.
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