Comparison - Build vs Buy.

Best for: Deciding whether to build or buy a platform or an internal system, taking three sourcing options to a steering committee for a single-slide approval, investment reviews that choose between outsourcing, co-development, and in-house work, and showing the cost of a technology choice alongside the cost of reversing it

Use: Use it when three sourcing options go on one slide and the slide has to declare which one is chosen. Four to six criteria run down the left, build, buy, and partner stand as columns, and each cell holds an amount, a duration, or a condition stated as fact. Unlike a scoring matrix, the criteria need not share units and there is no total row. One column alone becomes a vertical band with a face and an accent rule, and the bottom band fixes the reason in a sentence, so the conclusion lands before the table is finished. It belongs in steering committees and investment reviews where one approval has to settle the matter.

Avoid: Use comparison-decision-matrix when weights are multiplied into a total to crown a winner, comparison-feature-matrix when presence or absence of features is checked off, and comparison-multi-competitor-grid for four rivals beside your own product. Use comparison-tradeoff-spectrum when the message is that no option wins every axis, comparison-gtm-channel-scorecard when the output is where to move budget, and comparison-cost-stack when cost lines are stacked into totals. With only two options go to comparison-head-to-head or comparison-pros-cons, and once the option is chosen move to closing-action-plan-checklist for the sequence of work. If the cells can only say "under review", finish the research instead of drawing this slide: with no option to recommend, the lifted column becomes a false conclusion.