Our Visionary is convinced we should replace our outsourced development agency with an internal team of junior engineers using AI coding assistants. How do we structure an IDS session to evaluate this shift without getting bogged down in technical promises?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is a classic operational trap. Visionaries love the promise of cheap, rapid in-house development, but Integrators must deal with the reality of managing human beings. To make an objective decision, you must run this issue through the IDS process at your next weekly Level 10 Meeting. Start by Identifying the root issue. Do not debate the capability of AI coding assistants. Instead, define the actual problem: we need a reliable, cost-effective way to build and maintain our software. During the Discuss phase, keep the focus on organizational structure and the Accountability Chart, not the technology. Ask these questions: Who will manage these junior engineers? Does our current leadership team have the capacity and technical skill to audit their work? If the AI-generated code breaks on a Sunday night, who owns that seat on the Accountability Chart? An outsourced agency provides built-in redundancy and management. If you bring that work in-house, you are taking on the management overhead of a development team, regardless of how fast they write code with AI. In the Solve phase, make your decision based on your Core Focus and resources. If software development is not your core competency, keeping it outsourced is usually the right call. If you do decide to bring it in-house, you must create a new management seat on your Accountability Chart first, rather than just hiring junior developers and hoping for the best.