hardScenarioCase StudyMidSeniorLead
How do you scope a proof of concept so that it closes the deal?
7 min readUpdated 2026-08-15
Answer
Short answer
Scope a POC around the two or three technical claims genuinely in doubt, with written pass/fail exit criteria signed off by the person who will decide, a hard time box, and named customer resources committed before any work starts.
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Likely follow-ups
- The customer wants to run the POC themselves with your product and no help. How do you respond?
- Two weeks in, the sponsor asks to add a criterion that was explicitly out of scope. What do you do?
- How does your scoping change when three vendors are running POCs on the same criteria in parallel?
- The POC passes every criterion and the deal still does not close. What went wrong upstream?
Related questions
- Your POC met every exit criterion and the customer bought from someone else. What went wrong?hardAlso on poc and exit-criteria5 min
- The bid is due in five days, three technical sections are unanswered and the clarification window has closed. How do you run the last five days?hardAlso on presales5 min
- An RFP has just landed. How do you decide whether to bid on it?mediumAlso on presales6 min
- The sponsor has already bought the software and wants you to write the requirements for it. How do you approach that?hardAlso on scoping4 min