This is a tough post to write.\u00a0 I’m at the tail end of an evaluation process for my company that ended up with us deciding to go with a third party vendor for software which powers key area of our business.\u00a0 It is augmentation rather than replacement, but still.<\/p>\n
It was hard for me, because this particular key functionality was previously provided by custom software that I helped build over years.<\/p>\n
I like to build things!\u00a0 Like most other software developers, I get excited about building stuff.\u00a0 One of the unmentioned frustrations of many software developers is building something and then seeing it shelved.<\/p>\n
However, it was clear from the survey of solutions that there were three choices:<\/p>\n
Now, #3 is obviously not a good solution.\u00a0 #2 is a great solution, but is hard to put into practice, especially in a short time frame with a large code base (though we are trying to use some of the agile methodologies to make our software development more productive).<\/p>\n
#1 it is.<\/p>\n
Was this a wise choice?\u00a0 Talk to me at the end of the implementation, but I am hopeful.\u00a0 We did take several steps to protect ourself (after all outsourcing core business functionality can be deadly<\/a>), including:<\/p>\n One thing that helped me take this decision a little less personally is to redefine in my mind the value of software to the company.\u00a0 It’s not the particular implementation of the software that provides the value.<\/p>\n\n