Over my career leading engineering and data science teams — from regulated industries to early-stage startups to large enterprises — I’ve consistently seen one pattern: Teams can move incredibly fast when they understand how their work drives business value, and painfully slow when they don’t.
Most recently, as VP of Engineering and Data Science at a mental health startup, I watched our team’s velocity multiply after making one fundamental change. It wasn’t better processes, fancier tools, or more meetings. It was something simpler yet more powerful: creating crystal-clear clarity about how our business actually worked.
Here’s what I’ve learned from transforming team velocity across vastly different contexts — from zero-to-one products to large-scale systems, from heavily regulated environments to rapid experimentation cultures: The root cause of slow teams isn’t lack of process. It’s lack of context. The best processes in the world won’t help if your team doesn’t understand how their work creates value.
The Answer Isn’t Process
When teams feel slow, the natural instinct is to add process. More meetings. Deeper work tracking. And it gives a great illusion of control.
But here’s what actually happens:
- Each new process adds coordination and communication overhead
- Leaders get stretched thin managing communication
- Less time is spent on critical strategic thinking
- The team gets even slower
- Repeat
We’re optimizing the wrong thing. The core problem isn’t process – it’s uncertainty about what actually matters.
Why This Works: Cutting Through Uncertainty
This framework does something powerful: it gives everyone a shared mental model of how the business works. This means:
- Teams can make independent decisions because they understand the context
- Cross-functional collaboration becomes easier with shared language
- Learning becomes systematic rather than scattered
- New opportunities are easier to evaluate against clear criteria
Making It Real: A Practical Example
Let’s say you run a B2B SaaS product. Your business thesis might look like this:
Value Metric: Monthly Active Teams (teams with 3+ users who complete core workflow)
Input Metrics:
- Time to first value (how quickly new teams complete setup)
- Team activation rate (% of teams who establish regular usage patterns)
- Cross-team collaboration (average connections between teams)
Example Bet: “We believe reducing setup time from 45 to 15 minutes will improve team activation by 40% by removing early friction”
Now every team member can clearly see how their work connects to business value:
- Product can focus on streamlining setup
- Engineering knows which performance metrics matter most
- Support understands which friction points to prioritize
- Sales knows which benefits to emphasize
Start Small, Learn Fast
You don’t need a perfect framework to start. Begin with:
- Draft your initial business thesis
- Share it widely and gather feedback
- Start tracking basic metrics manually if needed
- Review and adjust monthly
- Let the framework evolve as you learn
Your Turn
Ready to make your team move faster? Book a free consult with me here.