Ok, so enough of all of the talk about the nuances of this principle. I’ve added so much content to its explanation that if I were to append these last three posts to the original explanation, no one would ever read it. So as I wrap this series of posts up, I’m going to sign off with some guidance around these principles. Concrete statements that may help to avoid the three confusion points I covered when I introduced this series. So here they are, with links back to the original post.

Principle: Prefer Packaged Solutions

Guidance:

1. Pursue a mixture of purchase, configuration and construction for a given tool or solution 
2. Rely on configuration where possible and building where unique and critical
3. Buy/ reuse as much and many times as you can, then build the rest

Putting it another way, Leo De Sousa shares some principles of his own on this topic. He’s much more succinct than I am and they are right on the money.

Do these sum it up? If not, feel free to comment and provide some of your own thoughts.