The emergent nature of this market, and the availability of deployment and subscription models which limit upfront costs, means that many organisations select their vendor based on how well they feel they can work together, rather than on the capabilities of their software. This can be an effective approach which will enable you to develop your requirements based on experience, but there are some non-functional requirements that you will still need to consider upfront.

Because the market – and the products within the market – is evolving rapidly, strategic decisions related to the goal and purpose of the solution and the way in which it will be hosted and managed take greater precedence over functional capabilities which will inevitably develop over time. Since many of the features can be developed relatively quickly by vendors if the demand is there from customers, organisations need to focus more clearly on what they want the solution to achieve, rather than on how it will be achieved using technology available now. Such considerations include whether your solution needs to be people-centric or project-centric, and whether your audience will be predominantly internal or external.