Deliberate Understaffing
You can't size a project right, so err toward too few people on purpose.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 95%
A resource-allocation decision rule for when you cannot know the correct answer. Since budget, headcount, and deadlines are emergent and unknowable up front, you must pick a direction to be wrong in. For staffing, always deliberately understaff, because overstaffing's failure mode (politics, low-priority work) is worse than understaffing's. Use it every time you resource a project or team.
Origin
MacInnis presents it as his general 'over-steer vs under-steer' management framework, then applies it to staffing: at Rippling it is a point of pride that every project is deliberately understaffed. He credits a prior Lenny's Podcast guest for the complementary 'keep the team dehydrated' metaphor.
Core principles
- 01No staffing/budget/deadline decision is knowable top-down or a priori; everything is emergent, so you set a best-guess default and manage to it.
- 02When you must be wrong, choose the direction whose failure mode is least destructive.
- 03Overstaffing is more evil than understaffing: it manufactures politics and pulls work far down the priority stack before you know it's needed.
- 04The wisdom is knowing how far to understaff without crossing into truly broken.
How to run it
- 1
Accept you can't get it right
Acknowledge the correct headcount is unknowable in advance. Set a best-guess default rather than agonizing for the 'right' number.
Pro tip Frame every resourcing call as 'which way do I want to be wrong?' rather than 'what is correct?'
- 2
Bias the guess toward fewer people
Staff below your perceived midpoint deliberately. Keep the team wanting more resources rather than swimming in them.
Watch out Understaffing is 'less evil,' not free. Push too far and you break delivery; the skill is calibrating the dose.
- 3
Release resources only when earned
Add people where you can afford to and where it's clearly appropriate, but keep the default posture that every project is under-resourced.
Pro tip Treat constant requests for more people as the healthy, expected background hum, not an alarm.
In the wild
Everyone at Rippling is constantly asking for more resources; MacInnis grants them selectively but insists it stay true that every project feels deliberately understaffed.
→ Avoids the 'crust' of low-priority work getting built before it's validated.
A prior guest described wanting a team perpetually 'dehydrated' — always wanting more water — until they're finally too dehydrated and you add help.
→ Keeps effort focused on the top of the stack rank.
Common mistakes
Overstaffing to be safe
Extra hands don't sit idle; they work the next 10 items down a stack rank before anyone knows those items matter. That is 'poison' — wasteful, slowing, and it creates organizational crust.
Chasing the 'right' number
Treating staffing as a solvable optimization wastes time on an unknowable answer instead of setting a default and learning as you go.
Is it for you?
Best for
Executives and team leads allocating headcount or budget across multiple projects under uncertainty.
Not ideal for
Safety-critical or compliance work where a thin team can cause irreversible harm; staffing there should favor reliability over lean tension.
From the transcript
“It is really important to me that we feel that we've deliberately understaffed every project at the company. If you overstaff, you get politics.”
“the advice is understaff deliberately always”
“That is poison. It's wasteful. It slows you down. It creates crust.”
From the episode
10 contrarian leadership truths every leader needs to hear
Matt MacInnis (Rippling)