Questions we answer Outsourcing and external support

Should I outsource or hire?

Outsource when the work is a definable outcome that does not need to live in your team. Hire when it is core, durable and needs to be owned by your own people.

Start from this question

Free · a few minutes · starts from “I think we need another person”

The short answer

Outsource when the work can be briefed to someone outside the team today, when the need is a defined piece rather than an ongoing one, and when you are content for the knowledge to leave with the engagement. Hire when the work needs context that only builds up inside the team, when it is central to what you do, and when the need is durable and fundable. Outsourcing is faster and more reversible; it also adds a brief to write and a relationship to manage, and those costs are real.

Both add capacity. They differ in control, in commitment and in what the business learns. Buying an outcome is faster and easier to stop; owning a capability is slower and compounds.

The diagnostic looks at how central the work is, how definable it is, and how long you will need it.

Is it really this?

Worth checking before you spend anything. These are the signals that tend to tell the two apart.

Signs it is

The work has a definable outcome that someone outside could be held to.
It is not what the business is known for, and is not going to become that.
The scope is steady enough to write down and agree.

Signs it's something else

The work is central, and what the team learns by doing it is worth keeping.
The scope changes weekly, which no agreement handles well.
It needs someone in the room, with context nobody could brief from outside.

What's usually behind it

Supporting work that has grown enough to need a dedicated person, but is not what the business is known for.
Core work that has been outsourced for convenience and now needs to come inside.

What people usually get wrong

Outsourcing a problem you have not defined, and paying someone else to discover it.
Assuming outsourcing removes management time; it changes the kind, not the amount.
Recruiting for work that fills part of a week, then padding the role with whatever is nearby.

The options, and when each one fits

In no particular order. Which of these fits depends on your situation, not on the question you typed.

Hand the scope to a provider
The outcome is definable, peripheral and steady.
Recruit
The work is core, durable, and worth owning inside the team.
Bring in a specialist
You need the work defined before anyone could be held to it.
Keep it inside and change the flow
The work is core and the difficulty is how it is organised, not who does it.

When doing nothing is the right call

If you cannot yet describe the outcome clearly enough to write it down, neither route will go well. Spending a few weeks defining the work is not avoidance; it is the thing both options depend on.

What the diagnostic asks

What a new person would mainly add.
Whether the work could be done outside the team, and how central it is.
Whether the need is growing and whether a permanent hire is fundable.

“I don't know” is always an answer. Nothing is assumed on your behalf.

The routes it weighs

Every diagnostic weighs all ten routes. These are the ones that tend to matter for this question — a description of the rules, not a promise about your answer.

Outsource
Hand a defined, ongoing scope of work to an external provider.
Recruit
Recruit a new person for a durable, sizeable need that is central to the team.
Specialist support
Bring in a freelancer, consultant or specialist for a defined piece of work.
Offshore
Run a defined scope of work with a team in another country or time zone.

What changes the answer

Core work with a growing need points at a hire.
Peripheral, definable work with a steady scope points at outsourcing.

Get your own read

A handful of short questions, then the strongest route for your situation, what's also credible, what we still don't know and what would change our view. No account, no setup.