The Clarity Advantage: How Separating What and How Fuels Better Results
Separating what and how is one of the most powerful — and most overlooked — levers for unlocking clarity, speed, and ownership in teams. When this distinction is blurred, delivery slows, creativity stalls, and everyone gets frustrated. When it’s respected, teams thrive.
This post continues the What and How series — building on the idea that confusion in roles, responsibilities, and intent leads to chaos. Here, we explore how muddying what needs to be achieved with how it should be done leads to micromanagement, disengagement, and missed outcomes — and what you can do instead.
What vs. How: A Simple but Vital Difference
- What = the problem, the outcome, the value you want to create
- How = the method, the implementation, the technical or operational approach
Sounds simple. But it’s everywhere: product managers writing technical implementation details in user stories, senior leaders mandating specific tools, engineers waiting passively for direction because “they told us exactly what to do.”
The Hidden Cost of Mixing What and How
When stakeholders prescribe how instead of focusing on what, it often signals a lack of trust or a fear of uncertainty. It might feel like helpful guidance, but here’s what it does in practice:
- Kills autonomy — Teams feel disempowered and checked out
- Reduces accountability — “I just did what they said” becomes the default
- Limits innovation — Better solutions are ignored in favor of the familiar
- Slows delivery — Every detail needs to be confirmed or corrected later
What Happens When You Separate Them
Separating what and how creates a productive tension. Product or business teams define what success looks like; delivery teams decide how to get there.
This enables:
- Clearer roles — Product owns why and what, teams own how
- Faster delivery — Less back-and-forth on micromanaged details
- Higher engagement — Teams take pride in solving problems
- Better outcomes — Solutions are designed close to the context
How to Create That Clarity
Here are practical steps to reinforce the separation:
- Write better backlog items
Describe the problem to solve, not the solution you assume. - Use the right roles at the right time
Product managers define value. Engineers define the approach. Respect the boundary. - Facilitate refinement intentionally
Let questions about the how surface in the team. Don’t answer them too early. - Check your language
Are you telling people what outcome you want — or how to do their job?
A Quick Story
At one company, the leadership team insisted on every team using the same “best-practice” ticket format — including a checklist of how to test and what tech to use. Teams became passive and annoyed. Velocity dropped. Bugs increased. When they shifted to defining only the business outcomes and let teams define their own path, morale and throughput soared.
Final Thought
If you’re involved in any kind of product or delivery work, ask yourself:
Am I giving my team a problem to solve — or a solution to implement?
Separating what and how is not about letting go. It’s about leading better by creating the space for others to do their best work. That’s the clarity advantage.
Further Reading
- Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquet
A powerful story of how giving control (the how) to teams — while maintaining clarity on intent (the what) — transforms performance. A must-read on intent-based leadership. - Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan
Focuses on product leadership and the critical separation between product discovery (what to build) and delivery (how to build it). Clear on roles and ownership. - Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
Offers structural insights on designing teams for fast flow, with a strong emphasis on team responsibilities and boundaries — a structural approach to separating concerns.