What answers do you need to select the right tool for your organization, program or project? We are collecting the questions with some rationale for WHY they have been found important so you can decide WHEN they are important. As the number of questions grow, we will reorganize this section.

1. Does the tool support your required output formats? If you cannot extract information from the tool in ways your users consumes it, there is additional work to convert your output which slows down your process and increases resistance to its use.
2. Does the tool support importing your existing data? Re-entering the data is painful. Deciding not to take it along is painful. If the answer is 'no' expect pain.
3. Which life cycle activities are you digitizing?
   1. What formats are needed to support your life cycle?
4. Do stakeholders in all stages of you life cycle have the same needs? For stakeholder that only do 'x', can they hide everything else?
   1. Will all stakeholders need the same training? Does everyone need to know everything? Do some users only need to know how to pull summaries?
5. Do you know what functions you need from your tool(s)? Some tools are good at requirements, others at architecting - none are really good at everything. If using a single tool, is it really good enough for all needs?
   1. Will one tool support your needs or will multiple tools be needed?
      1. if multiple tools are needed Do all tools support data exchange?
6. Is local control of data a requirement?
7. Can you accept being locked in to vendor data formats?