Make development partnerships work - tips and tricks from the frontline

Kindo’s CTO Simon Hartley, Trinity Perspectives’ founder Cian McLoughlin, Endo45’s founder Juliet Oliver, and Techwondoe CEO Jas Singh share hard‑won lessons on choosing, briefing, and running development partners. From a production outage caused by the wrong database tier to a COVID‑pivot that required rapid partner augmentation, they unpack what to ask, how to start, and the controls that keep cost, quality, and speed in balance.

Key themes include: 

• Partnering beats outsourcing (most of the time)
  Aim for enduring relationships, not one‑off build‑and‑leave engagements.
  Use the CRAFT framework:

  • Cultural fit: aligned ways of working and values.

  • Relationship: treat partners as an extension of your team.

  • Asking: demand domain experience, tech stack specifics, and real references.

  • Feedback: establish regular strategic and project‑level loops, both ways.

  • Trust: start small, prove outcomes, then scale the remit.

• Be ready to partner: arrive with clarity
  Bring a detailed prototype. Better inputs = better estimates and faster onboarding. Understand how the team will work and pressure‑test the proposed architecture.

• Start small, de‑risk the engagement
  Pilot through short sprints with clear deliverables and a scope‑change process. Use outcome‑based work first; move to team‑based augmentation after trust is earned. Treat UI/UX as first‑class: design early so devs can translate aesthetics into code.

Key takeaways:

• Use CRAFT to select and run partners; prove trust with a small outcome‑based pilot before scaling.

• Arrive prepared with prototypes, a clear decision process, and a product voice embedded in sprints.

• Put governance in writing: detailed estimates, sprint plans, milestones, and caps or fixed/outcome‑based contracts.

Hit play to watch the complete walkthrough and real-world tips.