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Issue 032TeardownIntegrationsRef 098

In conversation with a head of integrations: the contracts that should never have been verbal

Verbal agreements are convenient but perilous for complex system integrations. Our head of integrations discusses the common pitfalls and suggests strategies to ensure critical integration contracts are documented and understood by all stakeholders.

Andrew Pemberton· Development Director
4 min readReviewed February 2025
"What seems efficient initially often leads to costly rework, delays, and friction between teams and vendors."
Written by
Andrew Pemberton, Development Director at iWeb
Andrew Pemberton
Development Director
19 years at iWeb

Andrew leads the development practice at iWeb and owns the delivery runbooks behind large commerce migrations. He writes about release governance, deployment sequencing, parallel-run strategy, and the engineering decisions that reduce operational risk during complex transformation programmes. Focused on stable delivery, observable systems, and migration approaches that avoid unnecessary disruption to trading.

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