Acronym

In the associations where I’ve worked, I’ve heard many conversations over the years about resource constraints. Each association has been distinct in budget size and number of staff, but no matter how large (or small) the organization, at some point, we haven’t had the time/money to take on a particular project. It was just a question of scale.

That’s why an interesting commentary in the MIT Sloan Management Review, “In Praise of Resource Constraints,” caught my eye. The article argues that resource constraints can fuel rather than frustrate innovation.

Although it isn’t cited in the article, the authors’ arguments reminded me of a scene from the movie Apollo 13 that I’ve always found very inspiring. It’s at the point in the movie (as in real life) where the explosion in one of the oxygen tanks has crippled the spacecraft, and it’s an open question whether or not they will be able to get home before it runs out of oxygen. In the film, the NASA flight controllers are brainstorming solutions, and one of them dumps a load of objects on the table—a pile of materials that exactly duplicated what was available on Apollo 13, out in space, so they could determine what could be used to save the crew.

In that situation, the resource constraints were absolute—there wasn’t an interstellar shopping mall that the astronauts could run into for coffee and spare parts. The flight controllers had to figure out a solution based on a very specific set of items—and they did it.

The next time I’m confronted with a lack of resources, I’ll try to remember the Sloan article and Apollo 13. Perhaps the article will inspire you as well.