Eight Fundamental Constraints for Growing a Research Organization

By Peter Wildeford @ 2024-06-14T01:16 (+91)

I run a research organization. Research organizations, like all organizations, want to grow. I'm not talking growth for the sake of growth, but growth to be able to further your mission. However, there is always going to be a limiting factor constraining the pace of this growth.

Over time, I've distilled these into what I consider to be eight fundamental constraints.

You may have heard of talent gaps and funding gaps, but I actually think there are eight such gaps. Which constraint it is may change over time, but it is always one of these eight.

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(1) - There needs to be a sufficient amount of important+neglected+tractable work to support an additional researcher at the research organization. If this constraint is in place, there isn't enough for an additional person to productively do. (People basically never report this as an actual constraint.)

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(2) - The research organization needs sufficient skill at prioritization, strategy, and vision to ensure they are correctly doing (1) and doing it well. If this constraint is in place, the research organization would not do (1) correctly. (This is commonly referred to as "being bottlenecked on strategic clarity" or "needing more disentanglement".)

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(3) - The research organization needs a sufficient number of talented researchers available to be hired that could accomplish (1) and (2) if hired. (This is commonly referred to as a "talent gap".)

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(4) - There needs to be sufficient people and project management capacity at the research organization to align those hired in (3) with regard to (1) and (2). If this constraint is in place, the research organization cannot direct talented researchers to work on the correct things.

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(5) - There needs to be sufficient operations capacity to ensure that (1), (2), (3), and (4) all can happen. If this constraint is in place, the research organization may not actually be able to implement hiring rounds or onboard staff, or may risk not being legally compliant.

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(6) - The research organization needs sufficient funding to pay for all of the above. _(This is commonly referred to as a "funding gap".)

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(7) - The research organization needs sufficient throughput. That is, even if you have people you want to hire and have the management + operations capacity to have them do good work, it will still take time for people to actually join, get onboarded, become productive, etc. This is an inescapable constraint, but time will keep marching on.

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(8) - The research organization needs sufficient maintenance of good culture and org happiness so that existing staff feel comfortable with the growth.