Building vs. Outsourcing: Lessons from a Bathroom Remodel 🏗️🛁

Deciding when to outsource product development work is always a challenge. 

We’ve been using a recent bathroom remodel project as an analog for a development program, and discussing reasons to say Yes or No to hiring outside help.

Here are a few real examples, and the reasons behind each choice:

Design / Layout - No

I love designing stuff. Researching options, understanding the customer’s wants and needs (my wife this time ☺️), and putting it all together into something well thought out and special brings me joy. And this project was small enough that it was fun to learn a new design language.

Demolition - Yes to a helper

Tearing everything out doesn’t take much experience, but it does take time. In this case, I hired a young helper to work alongside me, helping him gain some experience, and helping me parallel path by starting framing while demo was still underway.

Drywall - Yes, 100% outsourced

I’ve never been good at drywall. I don’t really want to be good at drywall. There was a lot of drywall work to be done. I know a good drywall guy that I’ve worked with before and I trust to do a good job. This was a no brainer. He did the work (quite well!), and I got a couple days of my life back.

Tile - Yes, coworker / trainer

I severely underestimated the amount of time the wall and floor tile would take - I’m inexperienced, so not surprising! I started into it myself, focusing on the parts that I cared about the most, like the envelope cuts in large format tile for the shower pan that I’d designed in CAD 😄. I soon realized I wasn’t moving fast enough to stay on a reasonable schedule, so started looking for help. Eventually, I found a great guy who was willing to work with me, sharing his experience with me while still letting me contribute to the project. Another win-win scenario. I learned a lot from him. He made good money helping me and carrying a lot of the workload. I ended up with a great product that I still feel ownership over.

Deciding when to outsource product development work is always a challenge, and my recent bathroom remodel provided a perfect analogy. Here's a quick rundown of the choices I made:

• Design/Layout - No: I enjoy the process of designing and research, especially when it’s a small, hands-on project.

• Demolition - Yes: It’s low-skill, but time-consuming. I hired a helper to speed things up and help them gain experience.

• Drywall - Yes, 100% outsourced: I know my limits here. I hired a pro to save time and get a great result.

• Tile - Yes, coworker/trainer: I underestimated the complexity, so I found a skilled coworker who helped me learn while still letting me contribute.

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In all cases, it was about leveraging my time and expertise where it mattered most. The parallels to product development are clear: focus on what you do best, bring in experts where needed, and don’t be afraid to learn and collaborate along the way.

-Brian Schoolcraft

📅A month+ away from my desk🪑🖥️

I just took my longest break away from full-time work since college. Some of it was Christmas and family, but most of it was a bathroom remodel. Maybe “break” is the wrong word for it, but I wasn’t sitting at my desk doing my normal thing.

As much as I loved the chance to build something with my hands, I couldn’t keep from drawing parallels to my real job. 

Just like any project, I had to answer a specific question over and over again, at large and small scales.

Should I hire someone to do this for me?

The answer’s rarely clear. Here are some reasons that swayed me one way or the other:

Reasons to say YES:

-They’ve already got the specialized tools. 

    Maybe you don’t, and sometimes they’re expensive.

-It requires skill that’s difficult to learn without experience. 

    You can learn a lot on Youtube, but you can’t get experience

-You need a predictable timeline.

    One of the key things experience gives you is the ability to predict how long something will take

Reasons to say NO:

-You don’t know anyone you can trust to do it better.

    No one cares about your project more than you. 

    And you know what your capabilities are. 

    That other guy - maybe they’re great, maybe they aren’t.

-The experience is valuable in itself

    If you’re going to do it again (and again) you might as well start learning.

    Or else you’ll always be dependent on the people with experience

-When you’re done, you own the results, good or bad.

    Do you want to be able to point to an outcome and say “we did that?”

    Or is “we paid for it” good enough?

That’s enough for today, maybe tomorrow we’ll talk about a couple examples of Yesses and Nos 🙂

It’s good to be back!

-Brian Schoolcraft

🔍Find your place in the story

I love stories. Just about everything has one. People. Teams. Companies.

Relationships.

Projects.

Yep, your project has a story. And conveniently, most well-run projects follow a “narrative arc” that mirrors the structure of a good story.

The Project Narrative Arc

Exposition – What is going on here? What’s our goal? What’s the problem?

Rising Action – How do we solve the problem? Let’s develop some options.

Climax – We cut through the fog, and the path to the finish is clear.

Falling Action – Execute. Do what needs to be done.

Resolution – Deliver. Walk away successfully.

Understanding where you are in this arc is incredibly helpful for managing a project. It gives you a sense of your progress and highlights where your energy should be focused.

But it’s not just about knowing your position in the story. It’s about comparing that position to the schedule. Misalignment between the two can unearth problems early, before they spiral into delays or mistakes.

For example:

• Your schedule says you should be executing (falling action), but you still don’t have a clear path forward (climax).

• You’re in the rising action phase, exploring options and iterating, but you’re feeling pressure to lock in a detailed plan prematurely.

  
  

When you embrace your project as a story, it helps you see the big picture while also keeping an eye on what comes next. It’s a simple but powerful tool for staying on track and navigating the inevitable twists and turns.

What part of the story is your project in?

-Brian Schoolcraft