Most of us, at one point or another, have been faced with making a decision to purchase a software application. Whether a simple application to manage your schedule or a more complex quality management software, the challenge is the same: How do you decide if a software application meets your needs if you don’t know how the software truly functions?

Of course, the developer or vendor will describe the solution and demonstrate the application and its features, but will you really retain the depth of knowledge from one demo to another and truly understand how an application will meet your needs? Will it simply be close to meeting your processes or an exact match?

In the end, there is only one way to ensure an application will truly meet your requirements, and that is to validate that the software holds up to the claims made by its developer or vendor. The process of software validation will invariably reveal the major capabilities of a software application based on those claims, and if done correctly, it will go a long way toward helping you understand the product before you make a major purchase decision.

 …