Lean Product Management

Chapter 10. Eliminate Waste – Don't Build What We Can Buy

When arriving at a doable / not doable decision for a feature idea, product teams must not shy away for considering whether there is a need to build something at all. If there is an opportunity for teams to buy an existing solution or engage in a partnership with someone who offers a service/solution, we need to be open to considering that.

This decision of build versus buy versus partner versus nothing at all depends to a large extent upon how well our solution meets the needs of the customer and what our cost-impact comparison looks like.

This chapter addresses the following topics:

• Building what the customer values the most
• Feature black holes that eat up a team's time
• Parameters to consider ...