Framework
Decision

Cost-Benefit

Monetize costs vs. benefits over time

Best for
justifying or killing an investment
Time
1–2 hr
Difficulty
Intermediate

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Cost-Benefit diagramSchematic of the Cost-Benefit framework: Monetize costs vs. benefits over time.BenefitsCosts
The Cost-Benefit diagram — Monetize costs vs. benefits over time.
Example

Justifying a migration to a managed Postgres provider over 3 years

Costs (over 3 yr)
  • Vendor fees ~ $180k
  • Migration engineer time ~ $90k
  • Re-training for ops team ~ $15k
  • Risk of one-week regression in latency
Benefits (over 3 yr)
  • On-call hours saved ~ 1200 hrs (~$240k)
  • Faster recovery cuts a $50k/yr outage risk
  • Frees 1.5 FTE to ship features
  • Compliance posture improves for enterprise deals

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