Steve Jobs on focus: choosing what to stop building

The roadmap decision behind the idea

In a 1997 CNBC interview, Jobs describes reviewing future products and reducing the number being pursued. He explains the intention as putting the same or greater resources behind fewer things so the team can do a better job.

That is more specific than telling a team to concentrate. It is a decision about work that will no longer receive resources. The interview is also about a particular moment at Apple; it should not be read as a prediction about what any modern team should cancel.

Recording [1]

Saying no has organizational consequences

During the 1997 WWDC discussion, Jobs connects focus with refusing directions that do not fit together. He also describes the criticism and frustration that can accompany those decisions. The surrounding exchange concerns Apple’s technology and product direction, rather than personal productivity in the abstract.

Later in the same recording, he describes starting with the customer experience and working backward to technology. Keep that second part beside the first: cutting a roadmap still needs a positive account of what the remaining work is meant to make possible.

Recording [2]Recording [3]

Use the idea to examine a roadmap

These are Timbre’s editorial questions, not instructions from Jobs to your team. Answer them with your own users, commitments, and evidence in view.

• 01Which customer experience are we trying to make substantially better?
• 02Which current projects contribute directly to that experience?
• 03What attractive work would we deliberately stop or postpone?
• 04Where would the released time and people actually go?
• 05What evidence would make us revisit the decision?

Compare the situation before copying the decision

An early experiment, a mature product, and a company turnaround do not face the same constraints. A historical recording can sharpen a question without settling it. When you use the simulation, describe your company stage and ask it to distinguish the documented discussion from its interpretation of your situation.