How do I run build-versus-buy in a real meeting?
Out loud, with the people who own the requests. Route the three loudest, then the three smallest.
Do it out loud, with the people who own the work, not on a spreadsheet by yourself.
Take your three loudest AI requests. Route each one, in front of the room, through the five options: self-serve, buy, build, redesign, do nothing. Say why out loud. If all three come back build, stop, because you are almost certainly about to rebuild a commodity you could license.
Then do the harder half. Take the three smallest problems your best people keep hitting, the ones too minor to make any roadmap, and pick one to build this week. That is where adoption is won, and adoption is the whole game.
Give the routing a permanent owner whose job is to know the difference, and put a date on the calendar to re-route your biggest builds, because the line moves as the market moves.
The one-page tool is The Build-vs-Buy Decision Framework.
Cheers,
-Titus
Get it in your inbox.
New Issues, FAQs, and Case Studies as they go out. Each one names something, explains something, or hands you something you can use on Monday. Subscribe, and I will send each as it goes out.
Prefer the tool you already think in? Here is how to read it in your chatbot.