Let’s be honest: Bringing in external developers is often more about hope than strategy. “We just need more hands!” – Sound familiar? Too often, the result is wasted budget, missed outcomes, and blurred accountability. Which, understandably, makes your CFO go ballistic.

As a software service provider, I’ve had dozens of conversations about this – and ran a full product discovery with our clients to answer a simple question: When does external development actually make sense?

Spoiler: It depends. But there are many situations where it clearly doesn’t.
The good news? You can dramatically lower the risk of using external help with no outcome by setting it up the right way.

In this talk, I’ll share what I’ve learned from both sides of the table – and offer a practical framework to help product people.

If you’ve ever felt stuck between “too little capacity” and “too much risk,” this talk is for you.