The five questions
- What does the tool have to do on day one, in two sentences?
- Does a product already do most of it?
- Could two tools you already use be connected instead?
- Is this process part of how we win customers?
- What does the current workaround cost us each month?
Reading the answers
If a product does most of it, buy it and adapt your process a little. If connecting two tools solves it, do that. If the process is your advantage, or the workaround cost keeps growing and nothing fits, a build deserves a scoping sprint.
Start small
Even when you build, start with the smallest version that is useful and add features later. A first version in weeks teaches you more than a perfect plan, and you can stop if it does not work. Insist that you own the code, the data and the accounts.