1 min lesson
Pairing data with workflow stories
Use two rows in "Pairing data with workflow stories" to state the practical decision rules.
Step 1 of 3
Pairing data with workflow storiesThe credible-evidence pattern
- The number
- Agent acceptance up across the pilot org
- The story that makes it land
- A senior engineer cleared a multi-file refactor in an afternoon that used to eat two days
- The number
- WAU/MAU stickiness holding at six months
- The story that makes it land
- A platform team encoded their conventions in
.cursor/rules/so new hires ship correct code in week one
- The number
- Depth-of-use climbing past autocomplete
- The story that makes it land
- A squad used Agent to drain a flaky-test backlog that had stalled their release for a quarter
| The number | The story that makes it land |
|---|---|
| Agent acceptance up across the pilot org | A senior engineer cleared a multi-file refactor in an afternoon that used to eat two days |
| WAU/MAU stickiness holding at six months | A platform team encoded their conventions in .cursor/rules/ so new hires ship correct code in week one |
| Depth-of-use climbing past autocomplete | A squad used Agent to drain a flaky-test backlog that had stalled their release for a quarter |
Numbers without stories feel like a sales deck; stories without numbers feel anecdotal. The EBR needs both, paired.
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Full explanation
Full explanation
Answer the hardest question head-onPre-empt the skeptic
A VP Eng who doubts AI ROIReturn on Investment. The value gained versus what it cost, the language an economic buyer funds deals in. Press Enter for the full definition. will ask some version of: “How do I know this is real productivity and not just developers feeling faster?” Have the answer ready and lead with the honesty.
“I won't claim a tidy productivity multiplier - that number would be fiction and you'd be right to distrust it. What I can show is depth-of-use climbing, retention of usage at six months and specific work that moved faster, in your engineers' words. If you want a controlled read, let's instrument one team's cycle time against a comparable team for the next quarter and look at the real delta together.”
Overclaiming ROIReturn on Investment. The value gained versus what it cost, the language an economic buyer funds deals in. Press Enter for the full definition. is the single fastest way to lose a technical sponsor and, with it, the renewal. Cursor's culture screens hard for truth-seeking; an EBR that inflates a number is exactly the instinct the panel is checking you don't have. Underclaim and over-deliver.
Would a CTO leave this review able to say, in one sentence, what value they got and what they're paying for next? If the answer lives only in your charts and not in their language, rebuild the open.
QThe skeptical VP Eng asks: “How do I know this is real productivity, not developers just feeling faster?” What's the strongest answer?