What a Technology Due Diligence Review Actually Finds

Most technology due diligence reports read like code reviews. They flag technical debt, architecture concerns, and security gaps, and then leave the deal team to figure out what any of it means for the price.

That gap is the actual job. A finding that isn't translated into dollar impact, remediation timeline, and deal-thesis risk isn't useful to a deal partner. It's a list.

PRISM™, the diligence framework used in every CCA technology review, scores five dimensions (portfolio fit, risk quantification, infrastructure and engineering, strategic data assets, and management execution capacity) and routes every finding into one of four buckets: Gate, Price, Thesis, or Lever. A Gate finding stops the deal until resolved. A Price finding gets negotiated into the offer. A Thesis finding changes what the deal is supposed to do. A Lever finding becomes part of the 100-day plan.

The distinction matters because not every technical risk is the same kind of risk. A target with thin test coverage and a target with an unresolved data-rights clause in a vendor contract both look like "technical debt" on a slide. One is a multi-month engineering investment. The other can unwind the deal's IP position entirely.

A PRISM review runs three to four weeks: document review, stakeholder interviews with the CEO, CTO or VP Engineering, CISO or IT lead, and a written deliverable with an executive summary built for a board, not an engineering team. The output is a 100-day technology roadmap that the operating team can execute on day one, not a binder that gets filed after close.