Clear Constraints to Exceed Expectations

Defining constraints and communicating those transparently to all stakeholders involved is the easiest path to exceeding their expectations (or at the very least, meeting them). Projects that don’t take the time to do those end up leaving folks desiring more or bloated scopes that overrun timelines and budgets.

Have you ever walked into a restaurant and said “I’m hungry and I’ll eat whatever you serve me”?

Probably not.

Plus, if you have any dietary preferences or restrictions, that statement leaves out important details, which creates risk of the restaurant not meeting your expectations.

My preferred way to handle this is by using clear constraints.

Clear constraints breaks down to two parts:

1. Explicit boundaries that define the initiative’s overall “space” or “scope”

2. Transparently sharing those boundaries with stakeholders

Here are some of those explicit boundaries with an example for each:

1. Core use cases: discuss what you will (not) be solving for as part of the initiative

   1. “We are automating part of our ‘quick quotes’ process, as this represents 85% of the quotes we generate; we will not automate the remaining 15%, as those are edge cases.”

2. Resource limitations: defines what people, systems, time, and budget are available

   1. “We are going to use half a day of our lead salesperson’s time to assist with this initiative. We are not getting any new systems and must use what we have for this automation.”

3. Required inputs: information and systems needed for the initiative to be successful

   1. ”We need to know approximate budget and desired delivery date from our prospective customer, in addition to their contact details. We expect those details will be captured on our website’s ’request a quote’ form.”

4. Expected outputs: outlines what the initiative will produce for stakeholders to understand the impact and plan dependent work

   1. “We will produce a draft email with an attached quote for the salesperson to review before sending to the prospective customer. Our CRM system will have the necessary opportunity, line items, and quote details created automatically.”

5. Success criteria: define metrics with associated goals, plus any qualitative points to assist with storytelling

   1. ”We expect that more than 90% of the automated quotes will be sent without revisions and our lead-to-quote time for ‘quick quotes’ to drop to less than 2 business hours. Both of these enable our sales team to spend the reclaimed time on higher value work.”

Once your explicit boundaries are established, share them transparently with other stakeholders. This is not optional, so do not skip it, even if it seems hard.

Sharing this allows you to set expectations and align stakeholders, increasing the likelihood that you receive critical feedback early that can influence the initiative’s success, plus it ensures that people with lofty expectations are grounded.

TLDR: Use “clear constraints” to define and share transparently your initiative’s explicit boundaries, which sets you up to meet or exceed expectations.