Before we start building anything serious at NsisongLabs, we pause and answer a small set of strategic questions.

They’re simple on paper—but they radically change how we design, estimate, and deliver.

1. What painful problem are we solving, and for whom?

If we can’t describe the problem in one or two sentences that a non‑technical stakeholder agrees with, we’re not ready.

2. How will we know if this project was a success?

Define clear, measurable outcomes:

• Time saved per workflow
• Uplift in conversion or revenue
• Reduction in support tickets or error rates

Success metrics help later when scope creep appears.

3. What can we safely ignore in version one?

We deliberately list what we will not build now:

• Platforms or personas excluded
• Edge cases to handle manually
• Integrations we’ll support later

This turns the MVP from a vague promise into a specific contract.

4. What are the riskiest assumptions?

Risks might be:

• Technical (performance, integration, data quality)
• Product (will users actually change behavior?)
• Organizational (who will maintain this?)

We design early spikes, proofs of concept, or user tests specifically to de‑risk these points.

5. What is the simplest architecture that could work?

We prefer:

• A clean, modular monolith over premature microservices.
• Managed cloud services over re‑invented infrastructure.
• A stack our team and client can actually hire for.

Complexity can always be added later if it’s truly needed.

6. Who will operate this in 12–18 months?

We’re careful to:

• Match technology choices to the skills of the long‑term team.
• Provide documentation and runbooks.
• Avoid “NsisongLabs‑only magic” in the codebase.

We want our clients to be able to thrive with or without us.

These questions take a few hours to work through—but they save weeks of pain later.