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PlayP01 Foundational · All stages · Editorial rank 1 of 12

Establish decision-specific customer economics

Incompatible customer, cost and outcome definitions make an investment decision unreliable.

Decision
Which economic interpretation and investment limit are defensible for this intervention?
Primary commercial metric
Net value of a demonstrably changed decision or removed reporting expense; otherwise report foundation cost, not invented ROI.
Readiness
Basic
Agent role
None required or recommended for the calculation.
01

Fit

When to use this Play

A material choice depends on CAC, contribution, payback or customer quality that cannot be reconciled.

When not to use it

The selected decision already has sufficient economics, or a full data rebuild would delay an unrelated safe improvement.

Why it should work

Comparable costs and cohorts expose misleading acquisition or benefit claims and enable a better choice.

Basic version

One Finance-reviewed cohort and a controlled worksheet attached to the chosen intervention.
02

Prepare

Required maturity
Basic. Ready if Finance and the source owner can inspect relevant records. Not ready if the economic entity or source access is unresolved; narrow the scope first.
Check readiness for P01 (D02)

Inputs

One decision, customer entity, dated cohort, net revenue, agreed variable costs, acquisition expense, outcome lag and source definitions.

Audience or customer

The selected acquisition cohort or account population; no customer contact is required.

Human role

Finance owns definitions and reconciliation; the commercial owner owns the changed decision; an analyst explains missing data and uncertainty.

Systems required

Existing Finance, CRM or commerce exports and a controlled spreadsheet or query; versioned source links.

Guardrails

Permissioned data, no double counting, no false customer joins, no silent definition changes.

How to configure a Play

Copy the Play you need and complete only the relevant parts of T1–T5. Name the people responsible, define the customer group, agree economic and customer limits, and set a review date before starting. An empty decision threshold is not permission to act. Basic, Connected and Advanced describe how the work is configured; Experimental describes its evidence. AI is optional: compare each AI step with a simpler way of doing the same work.

03

Do the work

Intervention

Replace competing definitions with one versioned metric contract and reconciled cohort view.

Workflow

  1. Name the decision.

  2. Define entity, period and cost scope.

  3. Trace a record sample.

  4. Reconcile totals.

  5. Separate observed, forecast and incremental estimates.

  6. Apply the result to the decision.

  7. Record limits and owner.

AI role

Optional assist Optional explanation of signed definitions or anomaly hypotheses; no arithmetic authority or inferred missing costs.

Automation role

Queries, formulas, deduplication, reconciliation and scheduled quality checks.

Agent role

None required or recommended for the calculation.

Failure modes

  • Enterprise data programme by stealth
  • perfecting metrics no owner will use
  • immature cohorts treated as complete.
04

Measure and decide

Measurement

Compare decision readiness, reconciliation errors and operating effort before and after; trace any commercial gain to the subsequent intervention separately.

Primary commercial metric

Net value of a demonstrably changed decision or removed reporting expense; otherwise report foundation cost, not invented ROI.

Leading indicators

Resolved definition conflicts, traceable cohort coverage and time to an authorised decision.

Experiment

A customer experiment is unnecessary for arithmetic repair. Validate sampled records and run the old and corrected view for a limited reconciliation period.

Guardrails

Permissioned data, no double counting, no false customer joins, no silent definition changes.
Scale when
Reuse only when another funded decision needs the same definition and the maintenance owner can support it.
Stop / reassess when
Stop expansion if reconciliation cannot support the decision or maintenance exceeds demonstrated use; retain necessary financial controls.
05

Learn and progress

Learning

Store metric scope, sources, unresolved gaps, version and the actual decision it supported.

Practical tool

Next action
reconcile one cohort before changing investment.
Open T2 Economics and benefits ledger

Can repair this prerequisite for…

06

Optional depth

Advanced versionPrerequisites: see Required maturity above.

Shared economic services and validated forecasts only after recurring demand, dependable joins and prospective model usefulness.

Evidence for this Play1claim reviewed, with confidence ratings, limits and sources.

Claim classifications

Accepted means a principle or mechanism survived critical review, not that it guarantees a return. Accepted with conditions means prerequisites apply. Qualified means the original claim has been narrowed. Advanced needs substantial readiness. Experimental needs a capped comparison. Unresolved means the evidence cannot settle the claim. Rejected means the recommendation is excluded.

High, Medium and Low describe confidence in the stated target, not the chance of a positive ROI. For a Qualified or Rejected historical claim, confidence applies to the decision to narrow or reject it and to the supported limit—not to the original headline. Read the headline and classification together. An accounting identity or design principle is not empirical evidence of a commercial outcome. Follow the linked chapters, Plays and tools to see where each claim applies.