Principles for Software Customization

Scaling a Software Solution to a Business Problem

• 1. Never pay to program what you can buy off the shelf.
• 2. Use your consultants not just to design and implement the customized solution, but also to help you navigate your way through your options.
• 3. Never pay someone to customize what you can customize yourself
• 4. Never pay someone for expertise that you can acquire for yourself
• 5. To minimize cost, consider options which combine off-the-shelf software, advanced training and small-scale customization.

6. Consider large-scale customization when:

• No shrink-wrapped software meets 50% of your needs
• No combination of commercially available and small-scale customizations will meet 75% of your needs
• Using shrink-wrapped solutions will require extensive advanced training of many people
• The users tend not to stay in the job for very long
• The application is used only occasionally (once or twice a month), but is crucial to your operations
• The problem to be solved by the application is essential to your business operations and cannot be solved in any other way

©1997-2000, David Fenton Associates. Last updated July 5, 2000.