Full contents
Forty-four chapters
Published in full, because specificity is the argument. If a chapter you need is not here, the manual is not for you and we would rather you knew now.
| PART I — THE TERRAIN | |
| 1 | Four ways technology spend breaks conventional finance |
| 2 | Anatomy of a technology cost base |
| 3 | Six cost-base shapes: locating your sector |
| 4 | Where the money actually goes |
| 5 | Stakeholder topology |
| 6 | The operating year |
| PART II — THE COST BASE | |
| 7 | Cloud economics |
| 8 | FinOps for the finance manager |
| 9 | The licence estate |
| 10 | The architecture of people cost |
| 11 | Capitalising agile software development |
| 12 | Configuration and customisation of cloud software |
| 13 | Useful life, amortisation and impairment |
| 14 | Recharge, showback and internal pricing |
| PART III — THE CRAFT | |
| 15 | Driver-based forecasting |
| 16 | The bridge is the deliverable |
| 17 | Zero-based, but only where it pays |
| 18 | Business cases that survive contact with reality |
| 19 | Run, change and grow |
| 20 | The twelve levers |
| 21 | Model hygiene |
| PART IV — INFLUENCE | |
| 22 | Speaking engineer |
| 23 | The one-page narrative |
| 24 | Saying no without becoming the blocker |
| 25 | Running the monthly business review |
| 26 | Executive communication |
| 27 | Negotiating alongside procurement |
| 28 | Influence across a matrix |
| PART V — THE MACHINE | |
| 29 | The month in a page |
| 30 | Automating the boring sixty per cent |
| 31 | The decision log |
| 32 | Controls that do not create bureaucracy |
| 33 | Leading a small team, and your own attention |
| PART VI — THE HORIZON | |
| 34 | Seven forces |
| 35 | What gets automated, what gets scarce |
| 36 | AI cost management |
| 37 | Three archetypes |
| PART VII — FUTURE-PROOFING | |
| 38 | The capability audit |
| 39 | The technical stack |
| 40 | The commercial stack |
| 41 | Ninety days, twelve months, three years |
| 42 | Routes from here |
| 43 | Visibility |
| 44 | Making the move |
Part VIII
Ten tear-out reference sheets
Each complete on a single page, individually bookmarked, designed to be printed and pinned rather than read in sequence.
Technology finance glossary
The terms that carry financial consequence, both directions.
Capitalise or expense
Five gates and twelve activity types classified.
Cloud commitment matrix
Posture by workload, with the break-even arithmetic.
Renewal negotiation checklist
Twelve, six and three months out — and five things never to do.
The twelve levers
Three bands, with typical recoverable value.
Month-end RACI
By working day, from day −3 to day +8.
KPI dictionary
Fifteen measures with formulas, cadence and interpretation.
Questions for an engineering director
For a standing session. Ask four, not all of them.
Business case template
Annotated. Every field exists because its absence caused a failure.
The 2030 scorecard
Keep, sharpen, acquire, retire — scored and dated.