You are what you resource

All companies have limited resources (and time available). How they decide to allocate those resources determines what the company will (and will not do).

This limitation means hard decisions needs to be made (resource allocation processes) and these decisions define a company.

For example if a company only likes safe bets, then it will only resource the safe bets, and all other opportunities will be ignored.

Commitment

A further complication with resource allocation is commitment. If executives only give lip service to the allocation and don’t see it through work will remain undone and opportunities missed.

Without commitment, resource allocation is pointless.

Hiring

Andrews’ Law states that the shape of your teams determines what you do (and don’t do). When you have resource in wait, you need to deploy it somewhere and this will affect your allocation process and the work that gets done.

Disruption

This all becomes very evident when a competitor arrives on the scene and has a very different way of solving the customers needs. Your ability to respond will depend entirely on what and how you resource.