How to choose a software development partner
A practical sequence for evaluating suppliers, including the questions that are hard to answer well and the signals that matter more than a portfolio.
Read guideGUIDES
Practical guides to decisions you are making.
Longer, more procedural writing than our insights: what to do, in what order, and which trade-offs to weigh at each step.
01 / GUIDES
Start here.
Each guide walks one decision end to end, including the parts that are commonly skipped.
How to write a brief that gets you useful proposals
Vague briefs produce vague estimates and incomparable proposals. What to include, what to leave open deliberately, and why prescribing the solution costs you money.
Read guideHow to plan a cloud migration that finishes
A sequence for moving off existing infrastructure without the outage everyone expects, and an honest account of where the time and money actually go.
Read guideHow to scope an MVP that actually answers a question
Minimum viable products fail when nobody agreed what was being tested. A method for cutting scope that keeps the learning intact.
Read guideHow to run technical due diligence on an acquisition
What to examine when buying a company for its software, and which findings are genuinely deal-relevant rather than merely untidy.
Read guideHow to prepare for a security audit
What auditors actually look for, what to fix beforehand, and how to avoid the common trap of passing an audit without becoming more secure.
Read guideHow to decide between building and buying software
A structured way to make the build-or-buy call, including the costs that are routinely left out of both sides of the comparison.
Read guideHow to make a slow website fast
An ordered method for diagnosing and fixing web performance, starting with the measurements that tell you where the time actually goes.
Read guideHow to set up analytics that answer real questions
Most analytics implementations collect a great deal and answer very little. Designing measurement around decisions instead of around events.
Read guideHow to manage a software project when you are not technical
You do not need to read code to run a project well. You do need to ask the right questions and recognise the answers that should worry you.
Read guideHow to choose a technology stack
Stack decisions are made once and lived with for years. A method that weighs hiring, operations, and maturity alongside technical fit.
Read guideHow to reduce cloud costs without breaking things
Cloud bills grow quietly. An ordered approach to finding the waste, starting with the changes that carry no risk at all.
Read guideHow to replace a legacy system while it keeps running
The incremental alternative to a rewrite: how to find the seams, replace behind an interface, and keep every step reversible.
Read guideHow to structure a product team that ships
Team structure determines communication, and communication determines what gets built. What the common shapes are good and bad at.
Read guideHow to handle a production incident
What to do in the first ten minutes, who decides what, and why the review afterwards matters more than the fix.
Read guideHow to plan an ERP implementation
ERP projects fail on adoption far more often than on technology. What to decide early, and where customisation stops paying for itself.
Read guideHow to write a bug report that gets fixed quickly
Most of the time spent on a bug is spent working out what was actually meant. A short structure that removes almost all of that.
Read guideHow to choose a database
Access patterns decide this, not popularity. How to work out what you actually need before comparing products.
Read guideHow to run user research that changes decisions
Research that confirms what the team already believed was probably badly run. How to ask questions that can produce an inconvenient answer.
Read guideHow to prepare your data before an AI project
Most AI projects fail on data rather than on modelling. What to check first, and how to find out early whether the project is viable at all.
Read guideHow to plan for scale without over-building
Designing for a load you never reach wastes time; ignoring it entirely leaves a rewrite. Where the line actually is.
Read guideHow to hand over a project properly
Handover is usually treated as documentation dumped at the end. What actually transfers knowledge, and what to do while people are still available.
Read guideHow to choose an integration approach
Point-to-point, a bus, or events — the right answer depends on how many systems there are and how tightly they need to agree.
Read guideHow to reduce support load without reducing support
Support volume is mostly a product signal. Reading it properly turns a cost centre into the cheapest research you have.
Read guideHow to plan a website redesign that does not lose traffic
Redesigns routinely halve organic traffic on launch day. The technical work that prevents it is well understood and usually skipped.
Read guideHow to choose between native and cross-platform mobile
The decision rests on how much of your app is genuinely platform-specific, and on who will maintain it in three years.
Read guideHow to establish coding standards a team will follow
Standards enforced by documents get ignored; standards enforced by tooling get followed. What to automate and what to leave to judgement.
Read guideHow to budget a software project realistically
Budgets fail because they cover the build and nothing else. What to include, and how to structure funding when the estimate is uncertain.
Read guideHow to improve conversion without guessing
Most conversion advice is a list of tactics. A method for finding out where your own users actually stop, and fixing that.
Read guideHow to work effectively with a distributed team
Distributed work fails on written communication and unclear ownership, not on time zones. Both are fixable deliberately.
Read guide02 / RELATED
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