The arguments for each are familiar. The timeline usually settles it before the arguments do.
The timeline that decides
Hiring for this profile commonly takes around three months from opening the role to a start date. Longer for senior people.
Meanwhile the problem that triggered the search does not pause: a reporting layer nobody trusts, a quarter end that needs numbers, a stalled implementation.
If you can wait a quarter, hire. If you cannot, the decision has already been made for you, and the useful question becomes how to do fractional well.
When fractional fits
A backlog of specific fixes. Named problems with an end state. Fractional is excellent at a list.
You need someone this month. No hiring cycle.
You do not know what the permanent role should be. A fractional engagement is a cheap way to find out what you actually need before committing to a job description.
When full time fits
Continuous ownership rather than a backlog. Somebody has to be accountable every week, not for a project.
Decisions need someone inside the room. Stage definitions, process changes, what to stop. These need presence and political capital, which are hard to hold part time.
The knowledge has to compound. This is the only model where it does.
The failure nobody plans for
Fractional that never ends.
It begins as a fix, becomes a retainer, and eighteen months later the only person who understands your revenue systems is not on your payroll and has other clients.
That is not a bad supplier. It is a missing handover, and it is entirely preventable.
How to prevent it
- A named internal owner from week one, who participates rather than receives
- Documentation written during the work, not compiled at the end
- A written definition of done for each item on the backlog
- A review at six months asking one question: can anyone internal answer a question about our systems without calling them?
If the answer to that last question is no, the arrangement has changed shape and you should decide whether that is what you want.
The combination that works
Fractional clears the backlog while you hire. The permanent person arrives to a documented system rather than to a mess, and the fractional engagement ends on a date.
Agree that plan at the start. Discovering it later usually means the handover happens badly, under time pressure, or not at all.