Largely agree with these only one I would add to/ expand on is 2. There is both the vision/disentanglement type aspect of this but also having sufficient evidence that a particular type of research is worth doing. Maybe I’m just bad at 2 but I suspect the reason 1 is never reported as a constraint is it’s much easier to think of plausible exciting research projects and hard to confidently prove/disprove a project’s theory of change. Researchers in lots of disciplines come up with seemly good research questions (to them) all the time but very little research is actually high impact. So I suspect in practise most research organizations should be constrained by this more than they are.
I’m interested what you think is both the constraight most organizations would report and if you think this lines up with what their actual constraints are
I’d guess most people report funding, talent, or management constraints. Personally, I think I’ve found myself constrained by all of these except (1) at one point or another.
The problem with the strategy constraint is that you often don’t know if you’re faced with that constraint because you may not know your strategy is bad. As you say and I agree—empirically, a lot of people engage on bad strategies. Maybe I’m one of them? Would be hard to tell.
I also think organizations frequently underrate the extent to which they might be constrained on ops.
Largely agree with these only one I would add to/ expand on is 2. There is both the vision/disentanglement type aspect of this but also having sufficient evidence that a particular type of research is worth doing. Maybe I’m just bad at 2 but I suspect the reason 1 is never reported as a constraint is it’s much easier to think of plausible exciting research projects and hard to confidently prove/disprove a project’s theory of change. Researchers in lots of disciplines come up with seemly good research questions (to them) all the time but very little research is actually high impact. So I suspect in practise most research organizations should be constrained by this more than they are.
I’m interested what you think is both the constraight most organizations would report and if you think this lines up with what their actual constraints are
I agree completely.
I’d guess most people report funding, talent, or management constraints. Personally, I think I’ve found myself constrained by all of these except (1) at one point or another.
The problem with the strategy constraint is that you often don’t know if you’re faced with that constraint because you may not know your strategy is bad. As you say and I agree—empirically, a lot of people engage on bad strategies. Maybe I’m one of them? Would be hard to tell.
I also think organizations frequently underrate the extent to which they might be constrained on ops.