What you'll learn: how to turn a technical design into a ten-minute executive briefing: draw one C4 context view that a non-technical sponsor can read, follow a six-part narrative with times, state the decisions you need from the room, and keep the technical detail ready for questions.
At a glance
Figure 1. The one-page context view for the Order and Policy Assistant
How to read this: one box is the system in scope, the people and neighbouring systems around it are the context, and the arrows say only what the relationship is, not which protocol carries it.
A briefing answers four questions: what are we doing, why now, what could go wrong, what do you need to decide.
Ten minutes means six timed parts; state the decisions you need at the start and the end.
Detail goes in an appendix.
Scenario
Composite scenario, not a real company. Lumen Industrial Supply, a fictional distributor, has 24 customer-service agents who answer order and policy questions. The Head of Customer Operations, the sponsor, gives you ten minutes at Thursday's steering meeting (illustrative).
The team has a 30-page design. The sponsor asks: "What am I buying, what does it cost, and what is the worst that could happen?" You have one page and ten minutes, and need two decisions.
What you will be able to do
Draw a C4 context view with at most eight boxes and no technology names.
Write a ten-minute narrative with six parts and an ask.
Turn a technical risk into a business sentence with a control and an owner.
The C4 model describes a system with hierarchical diagrams: system context, containers, components and code. The context diagram is the one you could show to non-technical people: the system in scope, with the people and software systems around it, rather than technologies, protocols and other low-level details (source: c4model.com, accessed 2026-11-03).
Put on the page
Leave off the page
The system in scope, in business words
Frameworks, languages, cloud names
Each type of user, with a one-line role
Individual user names
Systems it reads from or writes to
Protocols, ports, the API gateway
An arrow label of one to three words
Calls, retries, queues
A box around "Lumen systems" shows what stays inside and what leaves. In Figure 1 one arrow leaves: text sent to the model provider. The IT security lead will point at it first. Which fields may leave and where the model runs are that lead's decisions, still open until the security checklist is signed.
The ten-minute narrative
Figure 2. Six parts, ten minutes
flowchart LR
accTitle: The ten minute briefing narrative
accDescr: Six parts in order with minutes: the problem and outcome in one minute, the context view in two, how it answers in two, risks and controls in two, cost and timeline in one and a half, and the ask in one and a half.
A["1 Problem and outcome, 1 min"] --> B["2 Context view, 2 min"]
B --> C["3 How it answers, 2 min"]
C --> D["4 Risks and controls, 2 min"]
D --> E["5 Cost and timeline, 1.5 min"]
E --> F["6 The ask, 1.5 min"]
How to read this: the times add to ten minutes; if a question eats the time, cut part 3 first and never cut the ask.
Part
Content
Evidence you bring
1 Problem and outcome
One sentence of pain, one measurable outcome
The baseline timing from discovery
2 Context view
Figure 1, read left to right
Nothing; the picture is the evidence
3 How it answers
Plain code fetches the order; policy answers cite id and version
One worked question, start to finish
4 Risks and controls
Three risks, each with a control and an owner
Test results from the test set
5 Cost and timeline
A base case and the case that moves it most; the assumptions behind both
In the interview: "Walk me through how you would brief an executive on this design." A good answer states the audience's question first, names the context view, gives the time structure, and ends with the decision requested.
Turning a technical risk into a business sentence
State each risk as: what happens, to whom, and what stops it. Example: "An agent could quote the old 14-day return window to a customer. The assistant searches only the current policy version and cites its id and version. A test question with a different answer in the old version checks this." It has no technology name, an observable test and an owner: the policy owner in Commercial.
Worked example
The briefing for Thursday, built from Figures 1 and 2. Assumptions: all numbers are illustrative; the cost figures come from the estimate.
Part
What you say (shortened)
1
"Agents take a median of 9 minutes per order or policy contact, from a small sample of 24 timings. The pilot target is 6 minutes or less, and the same answer from every agent."
2
"One assistant, 24 agents, three Lumen systems and one external model provider. It only reads; it changes nothing."
3
"Order status comes straight from the order system. Policy answers quote the current policy and cite it, or say it cannot answer."
4
"Three risks: an old policy quoted, someone seeing data they should not, agents not trusting it. Each has a test and an owner."
5
"68 person-days over 8 weeks, build cost 30,600, three-year total 93,357.50, or 136,557.50 if hosting doubles (placeholder prices). Hosting moves the total most."
6
"Two decisions today: approve a three-week proof of concept (POC) with six agents, with the 8-week read-only build to follow if it meets its written criteria, and have Commercial name who confirms the current version of each of the 62 policy documents, this week."
NOTE
Say "time freed" (336 hours a month if the median falls from 9 to 6 minutes), never "money saved"; Finance owns the hourly rate.
Practice task
Add your executive briefing to the design pack: one page and ten minutes, for this project or a customer of your choice.
Draw a context view with at most eight boxes, one zone and arrow labels of one to three words.
Fill the six-part table with one sentence per part and one piece of evidence per part.
Write the two decisions you need, each with an owner and a date.
Write the three hardest questions you expect and a one-sentence answer for each.
Briefing calls (interactive when JavaScript is on)
The sponsor asks what it saves. The estimate frees 336 hours a month.
Time freed if the median falls to 6 minutes
336 hours of pay saved
Nothing can be said yet
Answer
Time freed if the median falls to 6 minutes. Finance owns the hourly rate; time freed is not cash.
Part 5, cost and timeline.
93,357.50, one number
93,357.50, or 136,557.50 if hosting doubles, with assumptions
Build cost 30,600 only
Answer
93,357.50, or 136,557.50 if hosting doubles, with assumptions. Give a base case, the case that moves it most and the assumptions.
Questions ate your time. How do you finish?
Ask for questions
Email the decisions later
State two decisions, owner and date
Answer
State two decisions, owner and date. Never cut the ask.
Exercise
Explain it back. Explain Figure 1 to the Head of Customer Operations in three sentences without using a technology name. A good explanation names who uses the system, what it reads and what leaves the company, and states the one risk and its control.
Acceptance criteria: no technology names; every arrow labelled; the six parts add to ten minutes; the ask has an owner and a date. Done when someone outside the project can repeat the ask after hearing the briefing once.
Hint 1: your diagram has too many boxes
Merge anything the sponsor does not own or decide about.
Hint 2: your narrative runs long
Cut part 3 first. Part 4 has three risks, each with a control and an owner; the ask is the last thing said.
Common mistakes
Putting technology names on the context view; the audience stops reading the picture.
Opening with the container diagram, which answers an engineer's question.
Giving one cost with no assumptions or range, which invites an argument about the number.
Describing risks without controls or owners. A risk with no owner is a worry.
Ending with "any questions?" instead of the ask.
Knowledge check
1. What belongs on a C4 context view, and what does not?
The system in scope, its users and the systems directly connected to it. Technologies, protocols and internal structure stay off, because the audience is non-technical and the detail would hide the relationships.
2. Why state the decisions you need at the start and again at the end?
The first statement tells the audience they are there to decide, not to be informed. The second turns the discussion into an outcome with an owner and a date.
3. A sponsor interrupts at minute four with a long question. What do you cut?
Cut the answering flow in part 3 and keep risks, cost and the ask. The sponsor can read the flow in the appendix, but cost and the decision are what the meeting exists to settle.
4. Rewrite "the retrieval layer might surface a superseded policy" as a business sentence.
"An agent could quote the old 14-day return window; the assistant searches only the current version and cites its id and version, and a test question checks it." It names the harm, the control and the evidence.
5. Why mark the arrow to the external model provider on the page?
It is the one place where Lumen text leaves the company, and security reviewers look for it first. Showing it yourself, with the open question of which fields may leave, builds trust faster than being found out.
You can now
Add the executive briefing (one page and ten minutes) to your design pack.
Draw a context view that a non-technical sponsor can read.
Deliver a six-part, ten-minute briefing that ends with an ask.
Lesson 2 of 15 · AI Solution Architect: Estimate, Propose and Defend
How to brief executives on an AI architecture: a one-page C4 context view, a 10-minute narrative, the decisions you ask for and what to leave out.
In the rest of this lesson
Worked example
Practice task
Exercise
Common mistakes
Knowledge check
You can now
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