Scale and Capacity Model
Microsoft wants up to 10,000 people trained in person. This note sizes what that means so we can set the delivery model before we build content. Inputs are placeholders until ^q-005 is answered.
Assumptions (edit these)
| Input | Lean | Mid | Heavy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Learners | 10,000 | 10,000 | 10,000 |
| Cohort size | 40 | 25 | 20 |
| Workshop days | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Instructors in room (lead + TAs) | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| Delivery days per instructor per year (after travel/prep) | 150 | 150 | 150 |
Results
| Lean | Mid | Heavy | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cohorts | 250 | 400 | 500 |
| Instructor-days | 1,500 | 2,400 | 4,000 |
| Instructor FTE-years | 10 | 16 | 27 |
| FTE if spread over 2 years | 5 | 8 | 13–14 |
| Cohorts per week (2 yrs, 48 wks/yr) | ~2.6 | ~4.2 | ~5.2 |
Formulas: cohorts = learners ÷ cohort size · instructor-days = cohorts × days × instructors · FTE-years = instructor-days ÷ 150
Deployment-phase review load
Structure TBD: ^q-018. If every learner’s deployment gets a ~2-hour human review, that’s 20,000 hours ≈ 12 FTE-years of review alone. Ways to cut it:
- Team deployments (teams of 4 → 2,500 reviews → ~3 FTE-years)
- Deployment phase only for technical paths (see Learner Personas)
- Rubric-driven artifact checks (automated where possible) + sampled human review
What this means
- Frontier-only delivery works for the trial and the first ~1–2k people. Past that, a 5–14-instructor bench is a hiring and quality-control problem.
- Plan for licensed trainers now (^q-024), as the Claude Frontier Academy does. Frontier would own the content, train and certify the trainers, QA cohorts, and teach flagship cohorts. That only works if the facilitator guides and lab automation are good enough for someone else to run → Instructor Readiness.
- Labs at 10k scale must be one-command provision/teardown with hard cost caps. Lab cost per learner × 10,000 is a real line in the Microsoft funding discussion → Environment, ^q-009.
- The platform must handle bulk enrollment by firm, cohort scheduling, and certificate data handoff to Microsoft → Frontier Engineering Digital Learning.
- Role mix changes the math. If PM/delivery roles take a shorter path in bigger rooms, overall capacity needs drop a lot (see below).
Role-mix scenario (illustrative)
| Path | Share | Learners | Days | Cohort | Instructors | Instructor-days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Technical (eng/data/architect) | 60% | 6,000 | 3 | 25 | 2 | 1,440 |
| Delivery (PM/engagement) | 40% | 4,000 | 1.5 | 40 | 2 | 300 |
| Total | 10,000 | 1,740 ≈ 12 FTE-yrs ≈ 6 FTE over 2 yrs |