Summary
The AI-in-Business Foundations course assignment: a defended buy-vs-build memo.
Key Ideas
- A buy-vs-build memo forces the honest comparison most teams skip.
- The revisit rule is what makes the recommendation adaptive.
Assignment
Choose a real AI feature under consideration at your firm (or a firm you know well). Write a two-page memo recommending buy or build. Include: the feature specification, three candidate vendors evaluated against the eight-question framework, a cost model at year-1 and year-3 scales, a build cost estimate (people + infra + timeline), a risk register, and a written recommendation with the decision rule for revisiting.
Deliverables
- — Two-page written memo with recommendation.
- — Vendor comparison table using the eight-question framework.
- — Cost model spreadsheet at year-1 and year-3.
- — Risk register with likelihood, impact, mitigation.
Rubric
- — Rigor — the vendor evaluation is specific, not generic.
- — Cost modeling — both build and buy include hidden costs (people, opportunity, risk).
- — Recommendation — defensible under executive scrutiny.
- — Revisit rule — the memo names what would change the decision.