Best-of-breed and best-of-suite: the solutions for project management program selection

Modern project management uses programs and tools that support project planning. However, there is a large selection and the question always arises as to what you expect from a program. Best-of-breed and best-of-suite differentiate the approaches with which you can approach the selection of programs and tools.

What is best-of-breed?

Not every program or tool meets all the requirements that you would like. That's why there is the best-of-breed approach. This involves selecting several programs and tools that together meet your expectations and fulfill all the requirements. You select the "best of a breed", i.e. the best program in the relevant area.

The problem with this is that you have to familiarize yourself with several tools and the costs can be high.

What is best-of-suite?

On the other hand, there is the best-of-suite approach. Here, you use a single program for the tasks and therefore only have to familiarize yourself with one tool. This is usually software that has been developed for a specific purpose and therefore has most of the requirements for this one purpose.

However, this may mean that you have to cut back on functions and features. In return, you only pay for one tool and keep the costs low.

Best-of-breed or best-of-suite?

Which approach is the right one for your own company depends on various factors. These cannot be answered in general terms, but must be considered individually. It depends on the requirements and objectives. For example: If you only want to create a few tables and write texts for project management, Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel are completely sufficient for this. If, on the other hand, you want to plan the entire project management in detail, you need solutions such as SAFe, ITIL® and IREB®.

The following questions are decisive when deciding whether best-of-breed or best-of-suite:

How relevant are the processes that a tool should support?

The first question before using a tool or program is always: Which processes should the software support and how important are these processes?

The more important the processes are, the more important it is that all requirements are met by the software. This is why best-of-breed is generally the better approach for important processes, as different tools in symbiosis fulfill more requirements.

For less important processes where compromises can be made, the best-of-suite method is therefore an option. In most cases, there is one program that almost exactly meets your expectations, but does not go beyond them. If the program is not intended to fulfil any other purposes, best-of-suite makes sense because one program is easier to learn than several tools and the overall costs are probably lower.

How many different providers or programs should there be?

The question of the number of programs and, above all, different providers is particularly important if the individual departments in the company are interlinked and have to work together accordingly. If all departments use different programs from different providers, this can quickly lead to restrictions. These restrictions complicate collaboration and increase the workload.

A uniform program that is supposed to cover all departments, on the other hand, can be limiting in the sense that it is not equipped with enough functions for all departments and therefore cuts have to be made everywhere.

If you rely on one provider, it can also become very difficult and complex to switch to other providers at some point as the company grows.

How much time and money should be invested?

Time is money and vice versa. Many programs usually cost more money than a single program. And the time savings are not to be sneezed at either. Familiarizing yourself with one program takes less time than working your way through several programs.

Of course, seminars such as those offered by skill it help with this. Among other things, the training to become a SAFe 6.0 Scrum Master with certification. In this two-day course, you will learn the most important tasks of a Scrum Master in SAFe 6.0.

In our three-day training IREB® Requirements Engineering you will learn the basics of requirements engineering and prepare for the IREB® Certification.

Or learn the ITIL® 4 Foundation practice in our three-day training on service management.