Managing knowledge in technical demonstration plans: a template

Successful technical demonstrations require the marshalling and coordination of all aspects of business knowledge – technical, marketing, communications, and personnel. Many technical demonstrations fail, however, due to leaving out one or more of these elements. This paper describes a Technical Demonstration Plan Template used to plan, develop, execute, and evaluate a technical demonstration and reduce its inherent risks, especially for one–shot demonstrations that allow for only one chance to get it right. Drawing on his 25 years of experience, the author describes the key components of a technical demonstration and presents a template for a business to follow to ensure all of the essential parts of a technical demonstration come together, including back–up and contingency elements within the plan in case something goes wrong. The paper uses real–world applications and lessons learned to describe the benefits of a Technical Demonstration Plan and the problems encountered when not using one.