(2018-09-03) Maurya Expose Your Constraints Before Chasing Additional Resources

Ash Maurya: Expose Your Constraints Before Chasing Additional Resources. Very few people deliberately choose to limit their resources. In this post I’m going to make a case for doing just that.

Money is a special kind of resource. It is useful only when it is converted to something else.

But if you’re don’t yet know what you are doing, you’ll probably just get lost faster.

it is best to think of money as an accelerant. Money only lets you do more of whatever you are already doing. Figuring out the right thing to do first is more important.

Jeff Bezos instituted a two-pizza team rule at Amazon: Any team should be small enough that it could be fed with two pizzas. Furthermore, it is far better to have a complete team than a big team. Think in terms of requisite skill sets (design, development, marketing) than in terms of titles. You might find these skills across one person or five people.

we often find ourselves negotiating for more time to be added to the schedule when we should be doing the exact opposite

When there is high uncertainty, it is prudent to limit resources until you gain more certainty

Limit customer throughput to expose the right constraints

aim to create just 10 customers within a small time-box like 2 weeks. (iteration)

If you don’t hit the customer throughput goal by the time-box, explore why. This will help expose the right constraint. Then address it.

*If and when you do hit the customer throughput goal, level up from there.

This time, aim for 100 customers within another small time-box.*