Business Core · Partners · Module
Value review
A periodic honest assessment of whether the partnership is still worth what it costs — including the cost of managing it.
The idea
How it works
Partnerships are renewed by default far more often than they are assessed. The renewal date arrives, nobody has evidence either way, and continuing is the lower-effort option.
The cost side of the assessment is systematically understated because management time does not appear on an invoice. A partnership that consumes a day a week of senior attention is expensive regardless of its price.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Review against the original case
What the partnership was for. If nobody can find that, it is a finding in itself.
- 02
Include management cost
Time spent coordinating, resolving and reporting. It is often larger than the invoice.
- 03
Review before the renewal date
Far enough ahead that continuing is a choice rather than the only remaining option.
- 04
Allow the answer to be no
A review that cannot conclude “end it” is a formality.
One level in
The components of value review
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
Schedule the review well before the renewal date. On the date itself, continuing is the only option left.
The other modules in partners
Partner selection
Deciding who to work with, and on what basis. Most partnership failures are selection failures that management could not fix afterwards.
LearnThe agreement
What each side commits to, in writing, including what happens when it stops working. The last part is the one most often left out.
LearnGovernance
How the partnership is run day to day: who talks to whom, how decisions are made, and how problems escalate before they become disputes.
Learn