One Thing Only: Why the Right Question Beats Abstract Advice

TL;DR (AI-powered): Most teams drown in too many priorities and abstract advice. The solution? Use well-crafted questions as “enabling constraints” — especially “If we could only finish one thing right now, what would it be?” This creates real focus, sparks meaningful debate, dramatically improves flow, and still leaves room for urgent work.

I believe in the power of asking the right questions – and thoroughly considering them – to be often underestimated.

It can not only help reframe things by changing the conversation direction, but perhaps more importantly: provide the right constraint.

And this is not just about me showing my bias, as a kind of advocate for things like Goldratt’s ToC (Theory of Constraints). There are a few things we know that are helpful for managing complex systems, and one of them is that just about the best strategy for dealing with complexity is to limit and guide behavior by constraints.

Particularly enabling constraints, as rules or parameters that limit certain system behaviors while actively encouraging creativity, self-organization, and emergent patterns.

That’s precisely what a good question, posed in the right moment and with the right framing, taken seriously, will often will act as: an enabling constraint.

Take the pursuit of creating more focus by limiting WIP, with the intention to get more things through the finishing line (as opposed to way too many being juggled around), as an example. Here’s where the “right” in the power of “asking the right question” really matters.

I wouldn’t necessarily call it a bad or even wrong question to engage in a conversation straight on the grounds that we should limit WIP, create more focus, finish more stuff, this kind of stuff. But I do believe it’s better, arguably a more right question instead to ask this enabling constraint version of it:

If there could be only one thing we should focus on finishing now, what would that be?

Again, consider that thoroughly, and about the worst scenario you can get to is a heated, often meaningful conversation, debating over what that one thing should really be. Is it option A, B, or C? Well, that’s considerably better already when the alternative could go all the way to running out of letters in the alphabet to cater for all the options available in the current WIP list.

Perhaps there’s an argument that we can at least focus for now on those 3 things, in the best spirit of progress over perfection. You did limit the WIP in the end – but I hope you can sense the power of the way that conversation went about (in contrast with just talking through it in a rather abstract manner).

Now, you may be thinking (just like I was) – Ok, we can focus on A, B, and C as being the most important and urgent things for now, but what about the fact that often in knowledge work (like developing and maintaining software) there will be other sources of demand that somehow have to be taken into consideration?

• Things like unplanned work (U) that we need to jump into (e.g., production issues, a severe bug or defect, a new last-minute compliance matter…).

• Things like some planned work (P) that might need to happen (at least if you know what you are doing) because otherwise it will “bite us in the back” if not done timely.

So now we have A, B and C, plus the need to keep some slack in the delivery system to be able to accommodate U (hopefully that’s not plural in a given moment of time) and potentially some P (which hopefully too we can sequence in a way to deal with one at a time). That’s the full(er) picture, that’s what is most likely realistically representing what’s dealt with by most teams and delivery systems.

At that point, maybe we need to have another stab at it…

If there could be only one thing we should focus on finishing now (and knowing we can already acknowledge the next two in the queue), what would that be?

In other words, reframing the same enabling constraint conversation to this time around be less about stack ranking and selection, and more about given the selection, can we agree on the sequence within that selection?

Oh, and by the way, the fact there will be quite some more focus (minus the bits of capacity needed for U and some potential P), the chances are high that, whatever is agreed to go after now, will be out in the wild fairly shortly (at considerably improved lead time compared to where things used to be, when the delivery system was way too busy).

Ultimately, this is largely about framing and having meaningful conversation. Although, once more (as I keep repeating over here), not in a vague “clichéd” kind of way. Real, concrete, guided, meaningful conversation that all starts with either looking at signals to act upon or by asking and thoroughly considering right (or at least better) questions.

By Rodrigo Sperb, feel free to connect, I’m happy to engage and interact. I’m passionate about leading to achieve better outcomes with better ways of working. How can I help you?