How to choose a technology partner without getting burned

Most bad software engagements were predictable at the start. The signals were there; they just were not the ones being evaluated.

Ask who will make the decisions. Not who is in the meeting — who decides when a tradeoff has to be made at eleven at night in week nine. If that person is not in front of you now, you are buying a different service than you think.

Ask what they have refused to build. A partner who has never pushed back on scope has never protected a project from its own client.

Ask how the work is proven. Not milestones on a chart — a running thing you can open, early and often, that gets less embarrassing every week.

And ask what happens after launch. Software that nobody owns starts decaying the day it ships. If the plan ends at delivery, so does the value.