Build-vs-Buy Portfolio Review

Individual build-vs-buy decisions are correct in isolation but may produce a suboptimal portfolio. An organization that builds everything accumulates technical debt and engineering capacity constraints. An organization that buys everything accumulates vendor dependencies and integration complexity. The semi-annual portfolio review evaluates the full inventory of build and buy decisions as a portfolio — looking for concentration risk, capacity constraints, and decisions that should be revisited based on ecosystem changes.

1. Inventory All Build and Buy Components Create a complete inventory: every internal system, vendor subscription, and API dependency. For each, record: original decision date, current annual cost, strategic classification (differentiating vs. table stakes), and vendor dependency risk level. The inventory is the portfolio view that individual decision records cannot provide.
2. Identify Portfolio Imbalances Analyze the portfolio for concentration risk (too many critical dependencies on a single vendor), capacity constraints (too many build components competing for limited engineering time), and strategic misalignment (differentiating capabilities being bought, table-stakes capabilities being built). Each imbalance produces a specific recommendation.
3. Trigger Re-Evaluations Review the re-evaluation triggers from each decision record. Have any triggered based on ecosystem changes? If a trigger has fired, schedule the re-evaluation with the relevant stakeholders and provide updated ecosystem intelligence to inform the review. The portfolio review is where decision records become living governance documents.