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Budget Burn Alert Simulator

Run the Budget Burn Alert Simulator MicroSim Fullscreen

About This MicroSim

The learner will calculate the day on which each of four cost alerts (50%, 80%, 100% of budget, and month-end forecast) fires for a month with a runaway daily spend, to the exact day. Apply-level calculation requires the learner to run the threshold and forecast rules on a series. Committing days first exposes the difference between a total-based and a rate-based alert, and playing the month afterward shows the consequence.

This MicroSim belongs to the chapter Infrastructure Planning Monitoring. It uses p5.js with the shared quiz kit in sims/shared-libs/.

How to Use

  1. The learner reads the month's description and types a day for each of the four alerts.
  2. The learner presses Check; the sim plays the month day by day, marking each alert on the day it fires, beside the learner's answers.
  3. After the four checks, exploration unlocks: the learner changes the four quantities and sees all four firing days and the end-of-month total update.
  4. The learner should notice that the forecast alert moves earlier than every threshold alert whenever spend rises mid-month.

Iframe Embed Code

You can add this MicroSim to any web page by adding this to your HTML:

<iframe src="https://Kschuman-aon.github.io/genai-roi/sims/budget-burn-alert-simulator/main.html"
        height="472px"
        width="100%"
        scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Audience

Professionals and graduate students learning to estimate and defend the cost and return of generative AI.

Duration

10-15 minutes

Bloom's Taxonomy

Apply (calculate)

Prerequisites

cost alerting, budget threshold, cumulative spend, projected month-end spend

Activities

  1. Predict (5-10 min): work through the committed challenges before any answer is revealed.
  2. Explore (5 min): use the sliders unlocked after the last challenge to see how each input changes the result.

Assessment

For each of the four alerts the learner types a day number before the sim plays the month. An answer is correct when it equals the day computed by the Rules. Mastery is 4 of 4 correct, with at most one wrong attempt across the four. Exploration is not evidence.

Common Misconceptions

(1) The 100% alert gives enough warning. (2) A forecast alert fires at the same time as the 50% alert. (3) Spend that is normal for 9 days means the month is on budget.