Insights & Practical Guides
Articles on Voice of Customer analysis, messaging, and building practical tools for small businesses.
The Four Rows Missing From Every Proposal Scorecard
A proposal can win on price, scope, architecture and process and still leave you renting your own system. Four rows decide it, and no scorecard asks them.
Configure, Integrate, Replace, Build - or Wait
Five paths, not four: configure, integrate, replace, build - or wait. A scored matrix with tie-breakers, including the option every framework leaves out.
Scoping a First Version: What Decision Will It Produce?
Three of the four parts are standard advice. The fourth - the decision your first version produces - is what stops you building a tidy fragment.
What Each Blank in Your Software Brief Costs You
The seven-part structure is freely available. What no one prices is each blank - so here is what a missing part does to the number you get back.
The Signs Are Real. They Won't Tell You What to Do.
Five problems produce the same symptoms, and four are cheaper to fix than the one most people assume. Naming the cause tells you what it justifies.
Software or Process? It's Both - Here's Which Matters
Most operations have both a process and a software problem. A workaround that survives staff changes tells you which one is actually holding you back.
Software Ownership: Nine Assets, Three Moments
Ownership is nine separate assets, not one clause. Each has a moment when it is cheap to secure - and two of them are what actually end projects.
Too Big for Spreadsheets, Too Small for a Suite
Two or three stable products plus one small built piece across the gap. Cheaper than a suite, and it fails in four specific ways worth knowing first.
Four Things to Ask Before You Need to Leave
Four demonstrations that show whether you could change supplier. No technical skill needed, and cheapest to run while everyone is still on good terms.
Seven Questions That Explain the Gap Between Quotes
Three numbers for the same job usually mean three different jobs. Seven questions show which driver each supplier priced - and which they assumed away.
Why customer review language beats founder copy
Customer reviews contain more concrete buying language than most founder-written copy.