The Subtractive Goal-Shrinking Exercise
Make a bloated set of goals smaller and more concise each round until one specific, urgent number survives.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 90%
A facilitation exercise for teams drowning in too many goals across too many decks and boards. Everyone writes the single most important goal on a post-it, then pairs up and must make it smaller and more concise each round — fewer things, fewer words — until a specific, impactful number emerges. Deliberately naming even a wrong number unlocks the search for the real one.
Origin
A workshop technique Matt LeMay runs with client teams, described in this conversation and consistent with the 'subtract steps' ethos of 'Impact First Product Teams' and Alan Watts' 'law of reverse effort' that LeMay cites.
Core principles
- 01Over-complication is a form of effort that makes goals less effective (the 'law of reverse effort')
- 02Forcing goals to get smaller and more concise each round removes theoretical middle-layers
- 03Naming a wrong number out loud is brave and productive — it prompts someone to recall the real target
- 04A specific number creates urgency; a specific-and-impactful number drives the right behaviors
How to run it
- 1
Have everyone write one goal on a post-it
Each person privately writes what they think the single most important goal of the team is.
- 2
Pair up and shrink each round
Pairs merge their notes and must make the goal smaller and more concise every time — two things down to one, ten words down to eight.
Pro tip Constrain both scope and word count simultaneously; the friction forces clarity.
- 3
Surface and pressure-test the number
When candidate goals with numbers emerge, ask where each number came from. A brave wrong guess (e.g. 20%) often jogs someone's memory of the real target buried in a town-hall slide.
Pro tip Put the real number on a whiteboard with a timeline — current position, key ship dates, and the gap — to convert it into urgency.
Watch out Don't mock the person who names the wrong number; that guess is often what unlocks the whole conversation.
In the wild
A big company's ad-tech platform team had two Miro boards and a deck full of goals and couldn't decide what success looked like. LeMay ran the shrinking exercise; two candidates emerged: increase profits by 20%, or increase profits from £20M to £100M. The 20% guess prompted someone to recall a bigger target, and they went back and found a buried town-hall slide from their VP naming a £100M profit target by end of next financial year. LeMay put it on a whiteboard: £100M by year-end, launching in October, ~£10M earned by then, meaning £90M of profit needed between October and March.
→ Rather than freezing, the team responded 'it's time to step up,' generating concrete ideas — ship sooner, do more validation, commercialize earlier, build top-of-funnel now — because they finally had a specific, urgent, impactful number to organize around.
Common mistakes
Managing goals by accretion
The team kept adding to decks and Miro boards that 'grew and grew in all directions' (ending with two boards), so no one could make decisions; goals must be subtracted, not accumulated.
Staying quiet rather than naming a wrong number
If no one is willing to put a specific (even wrong) number forward, the exercise stalls; the guess of 20% is precisely what triggered recall of the real £100M target.
Is it for you?
Best for
Teams with an overgrown set of goals across multiple docs who can't say what success looks like.
Not ideal for
Teams that already have a single clear metric — they should move to prioritization instead.
From the transcript
“everybody got a post-it note to write down what they think the most important goal of the team is. And then they would pair up…”
“them saying 20% is what actually unlocked the conversation at the team level”
“buried in a slide in that town hall was this 100 million pound profit target by the end of the next financial year”
“the law of reverse effort which is that sometimes the harder you try the worse you make things”
From the episode
The one question that saves product careers
Matt LeMay