Six Weeks For Three Accounts

Six Weeks For Three Accounts — Volume I, Understanding Humans Before Products · Value · Investigation · Foundations. Dev spends six weeks on an integration three accounts use, and the effort-to-usage ratio that looks indefensible turns out to be the wrong ratio for the question being asked

1. 01 · Opening

   Six Weeks For Three Accounts

   Six weeks of engineering for an integration three accounts use. It is the worst ratio in the quarterly review.

2. 02 · The setup

   The quarterly review has one line on it that nobody can defend out loud.

   Sam: Six weeks of Dev's time. Three accounts use it. That is the worst ratio on the page.

3. 03 · The setup

   Ledger integration — Build cost: 6 weeks; Accounts using it: 3; Accounts total: 2,840; Share of accounts: 0.1%

4. 04 · You make the call

   Six weeks of work for an integration that 3 of 2,840 accounts use. Sam calls it the worst ratio on the page. What would you want to know before agreeing?

   The story does not tell you first.

   A. What those three accounts are worth, and what happens to them without it

   B. How many more accounts might adopt it next year

   C. Whether the six weeks could have been four

5. 05 · What happened

   Maya: Before I agree with him, what happens to those three if we had not built it?

   Dev: They leave. It is why they signed.

6. 06 · What happened

   Maya pulls the same three accounts on a different axis.

   The same three accounts — Share of accounts: 0.1%; Share of revenue: 18%; Contract length remaining: 2 to 4 years; Named in every sales call as reference: yes

7. 07 · What happened

   Maya: Six weeks bought eighteen percent of revenue staying for another two years.

   Sam: I built that slide. I would have cut it.

8. 08 · What happened

   The ratio was correct and it was answering a question nobody had asked.

   Maya thinks: Effort over users tells me how common something is. It never told me what it holds up.

9. 09 · What happened

   Priya: So how do we know which ratio to use?

   Maya: By deciding what we are asking before we pick the denominator.

10. 10 · What happened

    Value is what you would lose, not what it cost to build

    How many people use it is a question about prevalence, and effort over users answers it correctly. What would we lose without it is a question about value, and effort over users cannot answer that at all.

    Both ratios are arithmetic on the same three accounts. Which one is right depends entirely on the decision in front of you, and the mistake is picking the denominator before naming the question.

    This is not an argument for indulging every large customer. It is an argument for finishing the sentence. Three accounts at 18 percent of revenue on four-year contracts is a different fact from three accounts on monthly billing, and only one of those is worth six weeks.

11. 11 · What happened

    Sam: And if they were three small accounts paying monthly?

    Maya: Then you were right and we wasted six weeks. The ratio does not decide. The contracts do.

12. 12 · What happened

    The quarterly template gets a second column. Every effort line now carries what it holds up alongside how many people touch it.

    Maya thinks: The number was never wrong. It was just the only one on the page.

13. 13 · Complete

    Six Weeks For Three Accounts

    Pick the question before the denominator, because the same three accounts are 0.1 percent or 18 percent depending on what you asked. Next: why the same price converts badly alone and well beside something else.