Vendor lock-in: what to get right first

This is one of those topics that looks small until it costs you something. If you only fix one thing about vendor lock-in this quarter, make it the first item below.

The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.

Start here

Ask how you would leave before you sign. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

Then this

Data export should be tested, not assumed. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.

Eventually

Proprietary formats are the expensive kind of convenient. Small and consistent beats large and occasional here. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.

In practice

Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. Three things worth confirming about vendor lock-in before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Ask how you would leave before you sign — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

None of this needs a rewrite. Most of it is a morning's work once someone decides to do it.