# Select a Business System

Status: draft · v0.1.0 · Operating System
draft reference — not a fitted standard

Choose a system from the work backward—using controlled requirements, evidence, economics, risk, and implementation fit.

## Purpose
Select the smallest suitable technology and commercial arrangement that enables the approved workflow without creating avoidable lock-in, control failure, or implementation burden.

## Steps
1. Frame the system decision — Establish the decision, alternatives, authority, consequences, and evidence threshold before shopping.
2. Control requirements and scenarios — Translate the operating mechanism into testable needs without prescribing a favored product.
3. Form the viable option set — Create genuine competition among options that can plausibly fit the decision.
4. Test fit and collect evidence — Replace feature claims and polished demonstrations with comparable evidence against real work.
5. Evaluate whole-life fit, economics, and risk — Compare the complete operating choice rather than license price or feature count.
6. Decide and condition the choice — Make an unambiguous client decision while preserving disagreement, conditions, and residual risk.
7. Authorize and hand off the system decision — Turn the selection into a controlled implementation input and future review baseline.

## Connections
- upstream: Redesign Work and Workflow (/processes/redesign-work-and-workflow) — trigger: The approved design requires a new system or material replacement decision.
- upstream: Operate and Improve a Process (/processes/operate-and-improve-process) — trigger: An approved improvement requires a consequential system choice.
- downstream: Implement a Business System (/processes/implement-business-system) — trigger: Final terms and ownership satisfy the authorized decision conditions.

## Measures
- Realized operating outcome: The chartered operating outcome reviewed against baseline and selection assumptions without attributing all change to the system alone.
- Essential-requirement evidence coverage: Essential requirements with an approved test and sufficient evidence divided by all essential requirements.
- Selection cycle time: Elapsed time from entry-gate approval to Authorized System Decision, segmented by stage and waiting cause.
- Implementation package adoption: Required implementation artifacts linked to the Authorized System Decision divided by all required artifacts.
- Material late-requirement rate: Material requirements first identified after authorization divided by all material requirements, classified by cause.
- Data and dependency guardrail: Review of data access and portability, integration dependency, switching cost, renewal exposure, vendor health, support, and exit feasibility.