Editorial draft · A working outline for review and development.

Begin with the decision

Define the use case and the information involved before comparing products. Agree who can accept the remaining risk and what evidence would justify proceeding, changing scope or stopping.

Ask for evidence in context

Each question should lead to a test, a named reviewer and a documented limitation. A demonstration is useful when it reveals both the intended behaviour and the circumstances in which that behaviour may fail.

Working framework

Five questions for the evaluation brief

  1. Scope — Which users, applications and information flows must it cover?
  2. Policy — Which rules must be enforced, and where are the exceptions?
  3. Evidence — How will effectiveness and false positives be evaluated?
  4. Operations — Who investigates, responds and changes the policy?
  5. Economics — What are the performance, integration and cost trade-offs?
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