In development · FDE Business Track, course 1 of 5

The Cost of the Problem Calculator

Work out what the customer's problem is costing them today.

4
lessons
1
module
Alpha
in development
Coming SoonSee the courses you can start todayCourse content

This course is still being written. 4 lessons are drafted so far. The outline below is what it covers. You cannot buy it yet, and nothing on this page opens it.

Learning objectives

What you will be able to do

  • Pick the four network costs the customer is already paying and find where each one is recorded.
  • Pull the inputs out of systems the customer already runs, instead of asking them to fill in a form.
  • Build a calculator the customer's own finance people can check line by line.

What you leave with

Why choose this course?

  1. A cost model in their numbers

    Every input traces back to a system the customer owns. They defend the model, instead of you arguing for it.

  2. The four network costs

    A plain list of where the money actually goes. It covers the whole problem, not just the part your product touches.

  3. A graded calculator

    The lab checks the calculator you built. You do not write an essay about building one.

Course content

Learning roadmap

4 lessons · 1 module

This is the outline as it stands today. Lessons get added and moved while a course is being written, so it will change.

  1. FDE Business Track 1. The Cost of the Problem4 lessons

    A credit union sponsor has to defend a second year of spending to her CFO. You build her a number he cannot take apart. That means four cost buckets from four exports, with every input traceable to a record she owns. The capstone moves to a manufacturer you meet cold, where the rule about outage cost does not apply.

    • Why the Cost Comes First
    • The Four Network Cost Buckets
    • Collecting the Inputs
    • Build It and Hand It Over

From inside the course

Lesson 2 · The Four Network Cost Bucketsworked example
BucketAnnual cost
Incident handling$151,200
Change windows$108,100
Audit preparation$18,500
Outages$10,200
Total$288,000
The course follows one made-up credit union from start to finish. Its four network cost buckets come out like this, and incident handling costs about fifteen times as much as outages.

Coming Soon

This course is not available yet. Browse the catalog for courses you can start today, including the free courses available with an account.

See the catalogTry the free lessons

Same track

  • Network FDE 101

    Apply network expertise to a customer integration pilot: define requirements, verify evidence, measure the workflow, and prepare operational and product follow-up.

  • The Network TCO CalculatorComing Soon

    This counts what owning the fix costs over the customer's planning cycle, with your own side counted as carefully as theirs, and sets it against a status quo that was never free.

  • The ROI Business CaseComing Soon

    This builds a return that clears the bar on savings you can point at a document for, with risk claims kept out of the base case and payback given in months, because that is the number operators actually feel.

  • The Outcome TrackerComing Soon

    Freeze a baseline in week one, remeasure it the same way every quarter, and walk into the renewal with proof instead of recollection. This is the artifact most vendors skip, and it is where the forward deployed engineer actually lives.

  • Champion ConversationsComing Soon

    Every artifact in this track is presented by somebody else in a room you are not in. This is the playbook for building it with them, letting them attack it, and handing it over so it survives without you and without them.