Reflection Questions

These questions are most useful when answered in writing before a team discussion, or when used as a retrospective prompt after a decision has been made.

1. What is the cost of delay of the most important item currently in your engineering backlog? Can you calculate it in currency per month?
2. Pick the three most expensive systems your team operates. For each: what is the current monthly cost, and what is the projected cost at 2x current load? Has the scaling curve been modelled?
3. What engineering investment has your team made in the last twelve months where you could now calculate the actual return? Does the return match the investment case?
4. Where in your architecture is there a cost hot spot — a component whose cost will grow discontinuously as volume increases? Has that non-linearity been communicated to financial planning?

Design: Take the most significant engineering investment currently under consideration in your organisation. Build the economic case using the three-number structure: current cost, projected cost at 2x scale, and cost of the proposed investment. Calculate the breakeven point and the cost of delay per month if the investment is deferred. Present it in a format that allows a non-technical board member to evaluate the investment against other business priorities.