Topic: Getting Developers’ Buy-In on Build versus Buy
Host: Sendbird
When: 22 October 2021
Recording of the webinar, PDF of slides
When we’re building software products, we’re faced with daily/weekly “build versus buy” decisions. Should we license in a commercial product or platform to handle part of our own application, or build a capability ourselves?
Product managers and developers can have dramatically different points of view. Developers often start by asking how easy/hard a new feature will be, and whether it presents interesting problems worth solving. Product managers often start by asking if that feature will visibly differentiate their product versus competition, or get customers to pay us more, and what else is urgent at the top of the backlog. I dug into this and offered some suggestions on strategy and finding middle ground with engineering/development teams.
