Three plain questions separate IT projects that stick from the ones that quietly die. If you can't answer all three, you're not ready to buy.

First: what problem does this solve, in plain words? Not “operational efficiency” or “digital transformation” — plain words. If the answer takes a paragraph, the problem isn't clear enough yet, and no software will clear it up for you.

Second: who owns it after go-live? Vendors leave. Consultants leave. Somebody inside your organization has to own the system on a random Tuesday six months from now — the logins, the data, the decisions. If no name comes to mind, the project has no future past the launch date.

Third: what changes on day one for the people using it? Be specific. Whose morning looks different, and how? If the honest answer is “nothing much,” then nothing much will improve, no matter what the brochure promised.

These questions sound simple, and that's the point. Expensive failures almost never come from choosing the wrong technology. They come from starting before the answers existed.

Ask them early, ask them out loud, and write the answers down. The projects that survive are the ones that could answer.