Maximizing Value from Product Demos

Preparing and sharing relevant information with the vendor is crucial to getting the most out of a demo session for an incident management platform. This ensures the demo is tailored to your needs and provides actionable insights. Consider sharing the following:

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1. Number of users within your company;
2. The challenges or limitations of your current system and what you aim to achieve with a new platform;
3. Overview of how your team currently manages incidents, including tools and processes;
4. Existing tools (e.g., monitoring systems, ticketing software) you need the platform to integrate with;
5. Incident volume;
6. Budget and timeline for implementation.

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All demos are usually built around a common scenario. You will be shown how alerts are received and escalated, how to communicate incidents to internal and external audiences, how to resolve incidents, and how to prepare post-mortem documentation.

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Here are a few additional questions that might help you better understand the reviewed solutions.

Testing Platforms Yourself

A trial period is your opportunity to evaluate whether a platform aligns with your team’s workflows and needs. Follow these steps to ensure a comprehensive test:

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Step-by-Step Guide for Testing

1. Establish an account:

• Sign up for a free trial or demo account.
• Review the signup process for simplicity and clarity.
• Check if you receive immediate access or if additional steps are required.

‍2. Explore the onboarding process:‍

• Assess the quality and relevance of onboarding guides, tutorials, and videos.
• Note whether the platform includes default configurations to help you get started quickly.
  

3. Invite team members:

• Add users to the platform and assign roles based on your team structure.
• Test role-based permissions and access levels.‍

4. Integrate with existing tools:

• Connect critical tools (e.g., monitoring systems, collaboration platforms) to the trial account.
• Verify that data flows seamlessly between systems.

5. Simulate incidents:

• Create test incidents to understand how alerts, escalations, and resolutions work in practice.
• Check how incidents are logged and tracked within the platform.
  

6. Test notifications:

• Experiment with notification settings across different channels (email, SMS, push notifications).
• Verify that messages are delivered promptly and without errors.
  

7. Review reporting features:

• Generate reports to analyze incident trends and team performance.
• Assess the usability of dashboards.
  

8. Evaluate collaboration features:

• Test how well the platform supports communication and collaboration during an incident.
• Test the capabilities of integrations with Slack or Microsoft Teams.

9. Perform a retrospective:

• Conduct a mock post-mortem to evaluate tools for documenting and learning from incidents.
• Check for templates or guided processes within the platform.