The powers and perils of constraints
How product teams can leverage and mitigate constraints around them.
The constraints around us
A few years ago, I encountered a curious pattern during one of my then frequent work trips to the Dropbox HQ in San Francisco. Typically, these trips were chock-full of 1:1s with colleagues, meaty product & strategy reviews or team off-sites & events. But this particular trip was centered around two distinct deep-work sessions:
A GTM strategy brainstorm for a major upcoming product launch.
A group post-mortem for a recent product initiative that had been thorny and not very impactful.
As you might imagine, the vibes of the these sessions were in stark contrast. The discussion in the GTM brainstorm was exciting, creative and inspired. The discussion in the post-mortem was tense, challenging and at times combative. Heck, even the conference rooms for the meetings reflected the contrasting mood of the sessions - a large, airy room with bright windows for the former vs. a tight, dark, suffocating room for the latter! Nonetheless, both sessions were ultimately productive in nature. We exited #1 with alignment on a high-level GTM plan, and we exited #2 with learnings and corrective actions for future initiatives.
Later that night, at dinner with a colleague who was also in both sessions, we shared our reflections and identified an interesting tension. The GTM session was largely so positive because it was unconstrained: all ideas were welcome & the brainstorm prompts were highly creative. The group - many of whom had been spending the last few months deep in the weeds building the product - took to that setup like ducks to water. In contrast, the key takeaway from the post-mortem session was that the teams lacked focus & prioritization rigor - and ideally we should have been more constrained. The teams in the post-mortem felt that the collective lack of focus meant we had to navigate competing goals & incentives, scope creep & distractions (or ‘side-quests’ as I like to call them!).
The tension between the benefits of being unconstrained vs. the benefits of being more constrained is the motivation for today’s post.
A vocabulary around constraints
Coming out of that dinner, I wrote a personal note to myself to try to reconcile the pattern we had discussed. It read something like this:
If your focus is too narrow, seek to remove constraints.
If your focus is too wide, seek to add constraints.
Good things will happen.
This sentiment felt right to my own experiences as a PM, and was increasingly validated by the experiences of others that I shared this note with. It especially seemed to resonate with other PMs and team leaders. But what I was missing at the time was a vocabulary to help me better understand how to apply this principle generally in different contexts.
In the last year or so, I’ve been introduced to a clarifying concept: that of enabling vs. limiting constraints. I was first introduced to this by
, who writes a terrific newsletter on systems-thinking for teams, product people & organizations. I highly recommend you explore his newsletter if you’re interested in such topics.Summarizing what I learned, in my own words:
Enabling constraints: constraints that unlock alignment, more cohesion, tighter integration, stronger integrity of the “system”. Thoughtful and rigorous prioritization could be an example of this.
Limiting constraints: constraints that reduce potential, make convergence harder, impact predictability, lower conviction. Uninformed, arbitrary deadlines could be an example of this.
It’s important to state a fact here: we are always operating under constraints. Time is a constraint. Our minds and bodies are constrained. Our relationships are a constraint. Gravity is a constraint. But whether these constraints are enabling us or limiting us is a more nuanced question and requires judgment. For example, I’m quite grateful for gravity as an enabling constraint. It keeps me grounded so I don’t float off into the sky. But perhaps those with a proclivity to fly may not agree with me!
Are your constraints enabling or limiting you?
The answer is always: both, and it depends.
Let’s come back to earth and consider this concept at work now. For PMs and product teams, the need to identify and differentiate between enabling vs. limiting constraints can be vital to success. The most complex product work is often developing an optimal strategy & making sound decisions in the face of numerous constraints ex:
Customer & user behavior, burdens and buy-in
Corporate strategy, investment capacity and operations
Your team’s expertise, caliber and resourcing levels
Market and competitive pressures
Infrastructural and architectural needs
Different optimization functions over different time horizons (ex: this quarter vs. next year)
As you consider all of the constraints that your product & team is operating under, I encourage you to break it down this way:
Map out & understand:
What constraints are implicit vs. explicit?
What constraints are environmental vs internal?
What constraints can we control vs. what we can influence?
Are the enabling constraints of today potentially limiting us moving forward (or vice versa)?
Clarify & adapt:
As a team, are we more convergent today or more divergent?
What constraints might we lean into & embrace, as they have enabling attributes?
What constraints might we push on & challenge, as they have limiting attributes?
The outcome of this exercise is intentionality. Ultimately, your product strategy and team’s execution will always represent a mix of both enabling and limiting constraints. As a team, mapping our your constraints as above may allow you to know where to spend your collective energy. It can also help you react quickly and with more alignment if and when things change around you. And lastly, introspection on your constraints collectively and periodically will make you a happier and more settled team.