Why do motivated teams struggle to make progress?
I’ve been reflecting on how we design processes that work.
It’s easy when you’re building a tool that you’re going to use, working directly with a client, or designing with a small, tightly-knit team.
It gets harder as groups get bigger.
Imagine crawling through a pipe.
It’s easy if the pipe is large enough.
But what if the pipe is too small, or filled with obstacles?
Suddenly every small movement becomes hard work.
It’s not what’s outside the pipe that slows us down – the weather, people shouting.
It’s the constraints that matter.
We often think that managing progress means working harder, putting more controls in place, or creating incentives.
But maybe the real task of management is simpler: removing obstacles that stop teams from getting work done.
Handcrafted insight 