The Function Engine

Define the strategy, and map the minimum recurring processes every team needs...

Steps: 6
Last edited: Jun 30, 2026
Created by: Nova

About this process

A one-page tool for function leaders to name their strategy, define what they're saying no to, and map the minimum recurring processes every team needs to scale — so the function runs without them in the room.

The process in detail

6 steps

1
Start with the business, not your function
2
Now fill the top left: The choices we're making
3
Fill the top middle: What we're saying no to
4
Fill the top right: The one capability we build once
5
Move to the table: Map your recurring processes
6
Read it back as a whole

Read the full text

1. Start with the business, not your function

Don't touch the template yet.

The first question isn't about your team. It's about the teams you serve. Write down, on a blank page:

"What does each team I support actually need to win this year — and I mean really win, not just stay busy?"

Go team by team. Product. Engineering. Marketing. Sales. Whoever your internal customers are.

For each one, ask:

•What's their biggest bet right now?

•What would make them faster, sharper, less blocked?

•What's the thing they keep coming to us for — and are we actually good at it, or are we just the closest available person?

•What do they route around us to do themselves?

That last question is the honest one. If they're doing something themselves that should be yours — that's where your function is failing Job 1.

Don't fill the template until you've answered this for every team. If you can't answer it, you need one conversation with each team lead first. That conversation is part of the work.

2. Now fill the top left: The choices we're making

This is the hardest box and the most important one.

A choice is not a goal. "Be more responsive" is not a choice. "We serve product before GTM when there's a conflict" is a choice.

Ask yourself:

•"If two teams came to me tomorrow with urgent requests and I could only do one — which team wins, and why?"

•"What do we do better than anyone else in this company — and are we actually investing in it, or just coasting on it?"

•"If I had to explain our function's strategy to a new hire in three sentences, what would I say?"

Write down the 3–4 real choices — who you serve first, where you're putting your best people, what you're betting on. If your choices sound like things every function in every company would say, they're not choices. They're defaults. Go again.

3. Fill the top middle: What we're saying no to

Most functions skip this. Don't.

The "no" list is what makes the "yes" list real. Without it, every new request looks like a priority, and you spend your year running at everything and compounding nothing.

Ask:

•"What keeps landing on our plate that we keep doing — even though it's not actually ours to do?"

•"What did we say yes to last year that slowed us down more than it helped?"

•"What would we stop doing immediately if we had half the headcount?"

Write it down. Not diplomatically. "We are not the default catch-all for things that don't have a home" is a valid entry. So is "we stop custom-building one-off tools for individual requests."

This box is also a conversation starter with leadership. Show it to your CEO or COO before you lock it. The no list is where political conversations happen. Have them now, not when you're already overcommitted.

4. Fill the top right: The one capability we build once

This is Job 2 — the thing you build that serves everyone at once, gets sharper each time it's used, and would take a competitor years to copy.

There's only one. Not three. Not a list. One.

Ask:

•"If every team I serve needed the same thing from us — what would that thing be?"

•What's the capability that, if we built it properly, would make every team measurably faster?"

•"What's the thing I keep rebuilding for each team individually, when I should have built it once?"

Common answers: a shared data layer. A hiring loop. A forecasting process. A planning framework. An onboarding system. A way to define "done."

If you can't name one, you're still thinking in tasks. Sit with it longer.

5. Move to the table: Map your recurring processes

Now open the bottom section — one row per department.

For each team, the question isn't "what do we do for them." It's:

•"What is the process that recurs, crosses team lines, and currently runs differently every time it happens?"

That's your target. The process that exists — but only in someone's head. The ritual that restarts from scratch every quarter because no one wrote down the minimum path.

For each one you identify:

Name it — give it a proper name, not a description. "Product roadmapping" not "that thing we do in Q4." Things nobody names don't get fixed.

Set the cadence — how often does it need to happen? Be honest. If it should be quarterly but currently happens "when someone panics," write quarterly and acknowledge the gap.

Define the minimum process — this is the load-bearing step. Not the perfect process. The minimum one. The fewest steps that get to a reliable outcome. Write it as a sequence: 1 → 2 → 3 → 4. If you can't write the steps, you don't have a process yet — you have a hope.

Ask yourself:

•"Could someone new follow these steps without asking me a single question?"

If the answer is no, it's not a system. It's still a verbal explanation that lives in your head. A system that requires you to be in the room is not a system.

Name the owner and define "good" — one owner. Not a team. One person who is responsible for this process running. And write what "good" looks like in one sentence — the outcome a team could aim for without asking you to interpret it.

6. Read it back as a whole

Once all the boxes are filled, read the page top to bottom and ask:

•"Does this look like a function with a strategy — or a function with a to-do list?"

•"If I showed this to the CEO tomorrow, would they immediately understand what we're prioritising and why — without me in the room to explain it?"

•"Does what we're saying no to actually protect what we're saying yes to?"

•"Is the one capability genuinely one thing — or did I sneak a list in?"

If the answer to any of those is no, pick the weakest box and redo it. Usually it's the "no" list or the capability — the two things people most want to hedge on.

The team you serve most. Ask them: "Does this reflect what you actually need from us?" If they're surprised by something on the choices list, that's a signal. If they're surprised by something on the no list, have that conversation now.

Your own team. Ask them: "Does this match how you understood our priorities?" If they answer with blank faces, you have a clarity problem that predates this page.

The one-pager isn't a strategy document. It's a clarity document. Its only job is to make sure everyone — you, your team, the teams you serve — is working from the same truth.

This table should feel slightly uncomfortable to write.

If it feels easy, you're probably describing what your function already does rather than deciding what it should do. The discomfort is where the strategy is.

You don't need a perfect strategy. You need a clear one.

Clear is kind. Start there.

Use this process

Capabilities

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Created byNova·Official process

Last edited Jun 30, 2026·6 steps