Funding, lifecycle resources, and fiscal role discipline

Prerequisites: distinguish output from evidence; review the AI workflow reference. Public self-study is not official agency training, accreditation or a credential.

What you will be able to do

This lesson develops the ability to build a lifecycle resource model and route fiscal decisions correctly. The setting is NORTHSTAR Mission Portfolio, a fictional public-service portfolio containing ten proposed AI and non-AI interventions, three synthetic vendors, constrained staff capacity, and a staged incident. Every person, organization, system record, metric, and outcome in the case is fictional. Do not replace the case with operational, classified, CUI, export-controlled, proprietary, employer-confidential, or third-party personal information.

By the end of the lesson, you will be able to:

• Demonstrate how to build a lifecycle resource model and route fiscal decisions correctly.
• Apply that model to the synthetic NORTHSTAR Mission Portfolio environment.
• Produce a reviewable artifact that separates evidence, assumption, uncertainty, and authority.
• Recognize the critical failure and select a safe remediation path.

The performance standard is not confident language. It is a traceable decision, an artifact another qualified reviewer can inspect, a clear boundary around the learner’s authority, and a safe response to uncertainty. Knowledge checks are formative and do not award a certification or endorsement.

This curriculum runs self-study on VetsLearn. Where the text calls for an instructor, peer or formal review, use the stated acceptance criteria for self-review. Reflection questions support reflection; they do not replace independent assessment. A peer review is optional unless your actual organization requires it.

Part 1 Lifecycle quantity planning

Include discovery, data, integration, evaluation, review, security, privacy, accessibility, operations, incidents and exit. Hosted access shifts some infrastructure to providers; self-hosting retains hardware and administration. Context, tool loops and retries change demand. Estimate quantities first with labeled assumptions. Planning is not fiscal authority. Appropriation purpose, availability, amount, obligations and CR questions need current applicable law and authorized fiscal/legal review. Do not infer lawful use from a color-of-money chart.

Make the resource model auditable

Separate fixed support work from volume-dependent work. A monthly evaluation suite and on-call coverage may remain required at low usage; review minutes and inference calls scale with tasks. Write the unit beside every quantity so another reader can reconstruct it.

Assumption	Base monthly quantity	Double-volume quantity
Drafts	600	1,200
Calls per draft	3	3
Calls before retry	1,800	3,600
20% additional retry calls	360	720
Total calls	2,160	4,320
Review at 4 min/draft	40 hours	80 hours

Sensitivity: if review takes eight rather than four minutes, base review becomes 80 hours even without growth. If a tool harness averages six calls rather than three, base calls with the same 20% assumption become 4,320. Neither figure says how many staff can safely provide on-call coverage; that needs schedule and operating evidence.

Exit scenario: provider loss requires export, alternative hosting, regression tests, reviewer retraining and transition support. Record those work packages even when no unit price is known. Unknown costs are uncertainties to investigate, not zero.

Feedback: keep fiscal purpose/time/amount questions for authorized review. The quantity worksheet makes no obligation or transaction.

Five-year worked quantity forecast

The earlier 600/month figure is the base lesson scenario. If a downloaded pack uses 1,000/month, treat it as a separate scenario and do not combine totals silently. For this worked forecast, assume annual average monthly volumes of 600, 720, 864, 1,037 and 1,244 drafts in years 1–5 (20% growth, rounded at each step). Every draft uses three calls, adds 20% retry calls, and takes four review minutes. Keep a fixed twelve evaluation sessions and four restoration exercises per year.

Year	Annual drafts	Calls incl. retries	Review hours	Evaluation / restore sessions
1	7,200	25,920	480	12 / 4
2	8,640	31,104	576	12 / 4
3	10,368	37,324.8	691.2	12 / 4
4	12,444	44,798.4	829.6	12 / 4
5	14,928	53,740.8	995.2	12 / 4

Call totals are planning expectations and may be rounded up for capacity; actual events are whole calls. An exit in year 3 adds six export/rebuild tests and forty transition-review hours in this fictional assumption set: year-3 review becomes 731.2 hours and tests become eighteen evaluation/export sessions plus four restores. No price or lawful funding source is inferred.

Feedback: annual drafts = monthly volume × 12; calls = drafts × 3 × 1.2; hours = drafts × 4 / 60. Change one growth or review assumption, recompute, and preserve both versions. A forecast fails if it silently treats unknown exit work as zero or mixes the pack’s volume with this scenario.

Part 2 Synthetic worked example

600 drafts monthly use two generation calls plus one verification: 1,800 calls. Four minutes review each is 2,400 minutes or 40 hours. Twenty percent extra retry calls gives 2,160. Double volume gives 4,320 calls and 80 review hours under these assumptions. Access-only budgeting omits review labor.

Guided practice: identify the unsupported conclusion, name missing evidence and rewrite its scope. Change one assumption and identify which decision reopens.

Part 3 Feedback and repair

Base retry demand is 2,160 calls. Pass when units, timing, uncertainty and assumptions are visible. An estimate is not approval to obligate funds or a guaranteed price.

Retain the failed version, explain the criterion, correct the artifact and test a different invented case.

Next step: carry the artifact and failed cases into the next module lesson or capstone. Retain limitations when explaining your work.