The FDE earns the right to write code by mapping where work actually happens and where it breaks. The Situational Awareness Map, Anthropic’s 8–15 interviews, the Mom Test rules that kill happy-ears, the pre-code question card, and why “whether to build at all” is the first question.

• →Customer Discovery

Turning an ambiguous customer problem into sequenced, shippable pieces. MECE issue trees, the data-availability bar, risk-first sequencing, the 5-step Exponent framework, and the walking-skeleton MVP that proves the data-and-integration story in two weeks.

• →Problem Decomposition

Success is a number in the customer’s UI, not in your code. A three-layer Definition of Done, the four-metric FDE scorecard, and a concrete 30/60/90 calendar — week-1 small win, a reusable asset by day 60, a cross-customer improvement by day 90 — drawn from Exponent and Perspective AI.

• →Success and Adoption Planning

The FDE is a translator. The Pyramid Principle (answer first), SCQA, and MECE; a five-line exec one-pager that surfaces the cost of the alternative, not just the win; making tradeoffs visible (Derby); and how to explain why a system can’t guarantee 100% accuracy to a non-technical VP.

• →Executive Communication

Objections are information, not attacks. MoSCoW as the redirect tool, the Batista 4-step bad-news script, the difference between an FDE who “yearns for scope creep” and a consultant who defends it, and the recover-a-troubled-deployment playbook the interview tests hardest.

• →Scope and Objection Management

Run a full client engagement end to end — the five-phase loop from a vague ask to a measured outcome — assembling discovery, decomposition, success criteria, exec communication, and objection handling into one continuous simulation, then prepping the FDE behavioral round with STAR and the rubric.

• →Customer Discovery
• →Problem Decomposition
• →Scope and Objection Management