Unit 2: Strategy and Writing Behavioral Statements

Limitations allow you to get specific on who you are and are not going to service in this project.

Limitations are the binary things that are true or not true and enable us to use a produce or service.

For example, to use Uber you have to:

• have an electronic form of payment (when it came out in the US; this changed as Uber evolved to enter other markets)
• have a smart phone with connectivity and power
• be in an area that Uber services, at a time when there are available drivers
• you have to want to go somewhere that Uber is willing to take you
• be physically able to get into the back of an Uber

The limitations gives an ethical check with your stakeholders. Are they okay with certain groups being exclude?  You can also test this by offering interventions: if you tell the CEO you might introduce Uber-branded credit cards so that people who don’t have electronic payment services can engage and the CEO says they wouldn’t want you to do that, it is a clue that you may need to insert a limitation.

Behavioral statements should provoke thoughtful, difficult questions that we have to grapple with. If you come to a quick consensus, that is usually a cause for concern, as it often means you’re glossing over genuine disagreement or interpreting a term differently.  The goal of a behavioral statement is to reduce future disagreement, which may mean we need to do more disagreeing at the beginning.