An independent software decision memo with comparable requirements, scenario costs, operating ownership, risks, and the conditions that would change the recommendation.
A vendor quote and a development estimate rarely cover the same scope. One may omit migration and internal change. The other may omit ongoing security, support, and the product work displaced by the build.
We establish one decision question, requirement baseline, set of disqualifiers, time horizon, and evidence status across every credible option. The options may include buy, build, hybrid, partner, defer, or stop. Read the educational custom build vs SaaS framework if you are still learning the trade-offs.
The memo records the recommendation, its confidence, and the assumption or event that should trigger a new review.
Business, finance, security, procurement, and engineering agree the must-haves, constraints, and failure conditions before anyone scores a preferred option.
Licence or build cost sits beside configuration, integration, migration, internal time, operation, support, security, change, opportunity cost, portability, and exit. The horizon matches the decision and contract cycle.
The memo states the preferred option, rejected alternatives, unresolved evidence, dissent, operating owner, and review trigger. The decision meeting ends with an owner and next action.
We collect current requirements, offers, system information, contracts, cost inputs, and stakeholder constraints. The scope and schedule follow the number of credible options, evidence access, and the decision deadline. Any vendor diligence or later implementation is separately scoped and approved.
Use it before a material software contract, internal build approval, platform replacement, or architecture commitment when the options cross business, finance, procurement, and engineering. A small reversible tool choice usually needs a lighter vendor check.
The memo states the decision, owner, constraints, requirements, disqualifiers, options, evidence, assumptions, scenario costs, risks, operating ownership, recommendation, confidence, conditions, dissent, and review trigger. The build vs buy glossary covers the definition; this engagement produces the decision.
The schedule is set after the option count, evidence, stakeholder access, vendor contact, and approval deadline are known. The scope note states what can be verified before the decision and what remains uncertain. We do not publish a universal duration for unlike decisions.
Yes. Initial product evidence can sit inside the option comparison. A deeper supplier, contract, security, or exit review becomes a separate vendor due diligence workstream. We accept no reseller commission for the recommendation.
Yes. Buy, hybrid, defer, and stop are credible outcomes. Any later implementation is separately scoped, so the decision memo does not depend on awarding us a custom build.
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