An Elegant Puzzle

You’ll also have limited resources to apply, and they’ll usually be insufficient to simultaneously move every team down the continuum. Many folks try to move all teams at the same time, peanut buttering7 their limited resources, but resist that indecision-framed-as-fairness: it’s not a fair outcome if no one gets anything. For each constraint, prioritize one team at a time. If most teams are falling behind, then hire onto one team until it’s staffed enough to tread water, and only then move to the next. While this is true for all constraints, it’s particularly important for hiring. Adding new individuals to a team disrupts that team’s gelling process, so I’ve found it much easier to have rapid growth periods for any given team, followed by consolidation/ gelling periods during which the team gels. The organization will never stop growing, but each team will.