Commercial Constraints Shape Product Decisions

Embracing Business Constraints as Strategic Guides for Product Teams

The most effective product teams don't fight against business constraints but use them as strategic guides to focus their work. When product teams understand the commercial realities of their business, they can make better decisions about what to build and why.

Aligning Team Goals with Business Impact

• Product teams often get disconnected from business impact through excessive "cascading" of goals

  • "By the time you get things down to that level... there are assumptions baked into each of those levels"
  • Teams spend too much time "sweating the middle" - perfecting frameworks rather than driving outcomes
  • This creates what Matt calls the "low impact PM death spiral"

• Set team goals no more than one step away from company goals

  • Use "one why statement or one mathematical operator" to connect your team's work to company goals
  • Example: "By converting X single-product users to multi-product users, we'll contribute $Y to the company's revenue target"
  • This creates clarity that helps teams make better prioritization decisions

The Three Steps to Becoming an Impact-First Product Team

1. Set team goals close to company goals

• Avoid cascading goals through multiple levels that disconnect teams from business impact
• Use Christina Wodtke's model: company goal as center of gravity with team goals orbiting one level around it
• Ask: "If you were the CEO of this company, would you fully fund your own team?"

2. Keep impact first at every step

• Don't let impact get "cascaded into oblivion" during execution
• Maintain visibility of how your work connects to business outcomes throughout the product development process
• Visualize progress toward impact goals (e.g., drawing a timeline showing current state vs. target)

3. Connect every bit of work back to impact

• Estimate impact in the same unit of measure as your goals
• Avoid abstract scoring systems that obscure the connection to business outcomes
• When prioritizing, calculate potential impact in terms of your team's goal metrics

Reframing Business Constraints as Opportunities

• Regulatory, B2B, or financial constraints aren't obstacles but parameters that shape good product decisions

  • "If you're regulated, your competitors are regulated too"
  • "If you're B2B... you have immediate access to your customers"
  • "If your company has quarterly financial targets... you know what the business really cares about"

• Embrace constraints rather than fighting them

  • "The things you think you're fighting against are usually the things that are giving your work shape"
  • "Work with, not against, the commercial realities of your business"

Handling Stakeholder Requests

• You never have to say a flat "yes" or "no" - instead, present options with trade-offs

  • Show how different choices impact the team's ability to meet its goals
  • Provide a recommendation along with multiple options
  • "Options and a recommendation is the magic formula"

• When executives request low-impact work:

  • Connect the request to business goals
  • Clarify the impact trade-offs: "If we do this, our impact projection will need to be adjusted by this much"
  • Remember executives may have information you don't have

The Courage to Drive Impact

• Even if you're told to build something with low impact, that's no excuse - "you're still gonna get fired eventually"
• Individual product teams can break the low-impact cycle by "being brave enough to look at their own work"
• The most commercially-minded PMs are often the happiest - they understand their role in the business and set appropriate boundaries