Do tight constraints and deadlines improve product outcomes by forcing focus, or does more time produce better products?

Tony Fadell · May 11, 2022

The original Mac Cube overshot the market by trying too hard

36:17 20 Product: iPhone Creator, Tony Fadell on Marketing Lessons Learned from Steve Jobs, What is Truly Great Product Marketing, How The Best Product Teams Do Post-Mortems and Product Reviews & Is Product Art or Science, Data or Gut?

Tony Fadell · May 11, 2022

Product overshoot is caused by a lack of constraints — too much budget and time means you don't know when to stop

With unlimited funds and time at General Magic there was no discipline; constraints make teams more creative and force them to ship, which is why iPod succeeded where iPod Hi Fi (too big a budget, too long to ship) failed

36:36 20 Product: iPhone Creator, Tony Fadell on Marketing Lessons Learned from Steve Jobs, What is Truly Great Product Marketing, How The Best Product Teams Do Post-Mortems and Product Reviews & Is Product Art or Science, Data or Gut?

Tobi Lütke · Apr 3, 2023

Every constraint is a creative constraint — it is a matter of mindset — and people who complain about constraints have an incomplete mental model of the creative process.

13:01 20VC: Shopify Founder Tobi Lütke on Why Micromanagement is Good | Why You Will Learn More From Studying World of Warcraft Guilds Than You Will Companies | Why Happiness is BS; Lessons on Marriage, Fatherhood & Decision-Making Quality

Tobi Lütke · Apr 3, 2023

The belief that artificial constraints are merely annoying is a 'bad story' humans carry; artificial constraints are useful because they set boundary conditions for creative work.

Human firmware evolved for a different environment, so most of what we do on earth is awkwardly operating against human nature; progress comes from replacing one bad story at a time.

Scope: constraints should be pushed against and removed if discovered to be genuinely detrimental to the creative process

13:38 20VC: Shopify Founder Tobi Lütke on Why Micromanagement is Good | Why You Will Learn More From Studying World of Warcraft Guilds Than You Will Companies | Why Happiness is BS; Lessons on Marriage, Fatherhood & Decision-Making Quality

Tobi Lütke · Apr 3, 2023

The best teams are greedy for constraints — they want to restrict the space so they can start, develop something, and learn each other's aptitudes

Constraints let a team get going and feel each other out, like musicians forming a piece around a set key and tempo

10:31 Teams actively seek constraints to start work and learn each others aptitudes

Tobi Lütke · Apr 3, 2023

Engineering prototype phases should be tightly boxed by time and headcount — ideally three people and a week rather than six weeks, with repeated from-scratch attempts.

Hard time and people boxes force the creative work; the best code he ever wrote came from pair programming under a rule of throwing away all source code except unit tests each day and shipping only when the whole feature could be built in a day.

11:59 Tightly boxing prototype time and headcount forces creative output

Kevin Niparko · Sep 29, 2023

Constraints breed creativity — shortening the runway on a project makes a team move faster and reach the right product sooner

When Segment's second product was floundering, a three-month kill deadline forced them to cut the bells and whistles and simplify to what customers actually wanted

7:47 Shortening deadlines forces focus and simplification toward the right product