TL;DR
Constraints set the boundaries of the team’s scope, system ownership, and resources. Everyone loves freedom, but constraints can surprisingly power clarity, creativity, and team cohesion.
Why?
Clarity: Having clear constraints mean no second guess.
Case study: During the early days of Cortex Applied Research, the group could own services. When we created some new solutions, there was also an option for us to own the model or to ask our partner team to own it. Making such decisions at every single partnership and interaction was not only exhausting but also confusing. Service ownership impacted how we engage with partners, hire talents, and allocate our resources. Cortex leadership eventually agreed with my recommendation that we should not own any services. Maintaining and deprecating services are not the core strength of our research team. This single constraint decision was among the most critical decisions that have shaped CAR. As a product manager, it allows me to establish a clear engagement model, screen potential use cases, and align with my engineering counterparts.
Creativity: With less time and resources, we become more resourceful (creative) and effective. With more time but more focus (limited scope), we also become more creative to excel/master our craft.
Case study: One thing I learned about Apple was their attention to detail. Why/How can they have such time? Because their team can only do one thing at a time. I was told that someone’s entire job is to design the plastic wrapper peeling experience.
Team Cohesion: Mission constraints unify team members.
Dimensions of constraints
What constraints should we consider in forming a team charter? Here are a few dimensions to consider. The list is not exhaustive.
Scope — Customer segmentation. Identify a single customer segment that we are responsible for, end-to-end. To do this, we first need to decide the types of customers we want to focus on and why.
E.g.: Amazon Businesses own the purchase experience of enterprise customers, end-to-end.
Scope — Customer problems
- Map out the customer journey end-to-end. Where does our scope start and end? Why do we have a competitive advantage against other teams in this portion of the customers’ journey?
- Map out the problem domains (hopefully with a logical framework) within that part of the customer journey and examine the relationship. What are customers doing without our solutions? Do the customer segment and its problem sets persist? How do we position ourselves to solve their problems?
System Ownership. Map out the technical stack end-to-end. Where do we have a competitive advantage against other teams? This question might be related to the type of talents we have on our team. Sometimes, making a hard decision also means letting go of certain irrelevant skillsets.
Resources — External factors. Regulations or social trends can become motivating challenges or frustrating blockers. If we can identify the regulatory factors early, we can set up our own constraints to stay ahead of the change. Even better, we can influence the regulatory roadmap and social perception.
E.g.: Amazon drone delivery was not allowed by the FAA before August 2020, so Amazon could only test their innovation in the UK and need to first design their solution tailored to the UK market.
E.g.: Regulation has pushed the electric car industry a long way, both at the federal and state levels. “Government rules could sometimes push industries to pursue technological innovations that they wouldn’t have otherwise considered.”
Resources — Investments. This constraint is a tricky one to balance. Too little resources can demotivate employees. So we want the right amount of resources, time, inputs to make our team resourceful.
What is not a good constraint?
A technique or solution is a bad constraint for a team charter. It might be easy to settle on a technological advantage at first, but our team can’t grow and pivot using the same techniques. Any technology also becomes obsolete very quickly and the new technology will revamp the industry.
