About

Build Enough Process to Succeed — Not So Much That You Stop Moving

The Right-Sized Framework helps technical and business leaders create enough structure to coordinate teams, manage risk, and deliver products — without importing the bureaucracy of a much larger organization.

Why the Framework Exists

The middle path between chaos and bureaucracy

Growing companies reach a point where informal execution stops working — but the heavyweight processes built for much larger organizations are just as wrong for them. Teams tend to fall into one of two traps.

Too little process looks like unclear ownership, rework, missed interfaces between teams, and surprises that show up late — when they're expensive to fix.

Too much process looks like meetings, gates, documents, and approvals that exist to protect the process rather than the product — overhead that slows the organization down without making the product any better.

The Right-Sized Framework is the middle path: enough discipline to coordinate complex work, but only the process that actually contributes to getting the product into customers' hands.

What the Framework Helps Leaders Do

Practical outcomes, not more process for its own sake

  • Turn an idea into an executable project.
  • Align cross-functional teams around clear outcomes.
  • Identify the work that actually reduces project risk.
  • Build and test a minimum viable product.
  • Use market feedback to refine the product.
  • Establish repeatable workflows as the organization grows.
  • Maintain engineering rigor without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
The Right-Sized Framework for Product Development — David Robie, PhD

About the Author

Dave Robie, PhD

Dave Robie is an engineer, program leader, and entrepreneur who has spent his career working at the intersection of complex technology and execution. The Right-Sized Framework grew from a recurring observation: successful teams need disciplined processes, but those processes have to fit the organization, the product, and the problem being solved.

That perspective runs through every chapter of the book — practical business clarity aimed at people who need to get real work out the door, not consulting jargon aimed at people who need to sound busy.

Connect with Dave on LinkedIn →

The Philosophy Behind "Right-Sized"

Right-sized doesn't mean smaller. It means matched to the problem.

"Right-sized" does not mean:

  • Less engineering.
  • Less accountability.
  • Skipping documentation.
  • Moving fast and hoping for the best.

It means applying the appropriate level of structure to the actual problem in front of you. A small team validating an early product shouldn't operate like a 10,000-person aerospace program. A growing technical organization can't keep relying entirely on hallway conversations and individual heroics, either.

The framework helps leaders recognize when additional structure creates value — and when it merely creates overhead.

Where to Go Next

Three ways to keep going