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Applications

What software should this business assemble, rent, or own?

The Spine​

  1. Function Specs — start with the critical software requirements by business function.
  2. Function Catalog — derive the function set and demand register behind a product or operating function.
  3. Select Tech — run the evidence gates before choosing a tool, vendor, or open-source option.
  4. Build or Buy — decide what to rent, bridge, own, or defer based on strategic value and data sovereignty.
  5. Vertical Patterns — adapt horizontal functions into industry-specific bundles.
  6. Tools & Skills Matrix — allocate each task to a player, skill, and tool once the function's jobs are inventoried.

Zoom Out​

Context​

  • Tight Five Loops — keep selection tied to intention, action, measurement, and learning.

  • Jobs To Be Done — translate functions into customer and operator jobs.

  • Data Footprint — decide what the business data can do before choosing software.

  • depends-on Software — the build layer once the selection question becomes implementation.

  • pairs-with AI Toolkit — choose the AI tools (models, CLIs, MCP servers) that bring value to a workflow.

  • pairs-with Business Tech Systems — the operating context that turns applications into business capability.

Questions​

Which business function creates data that should become an advantage, not a vendor lock-in?

  • Which function is commodity enough to rent?
  • Which function shapes the data model enough to own?
  • Which tool choice should run through evidence gates before money moves?

Changes my mind: a business where renting every function beats owning the data model — where no function creates durable data advantage — would break the build-or-buy spine. Next question: which single function, owned first, compounds into the strongest data moat?