Don't No

We've all been there: frustrated by a request from a stakeholder for what we take to be significant new work without regard for the scale of it, the time it would take, or the current backlog.

Recently, a colleague in that situation and ready to scream "NOOOOO!!!!" asked for my advice. What I said boiled down to this:

Step back and think of at least three ways that the request could be interpreted.
Sketch rough ideas for how you could do each of them, at what cost, with what compromises.
Share them with your stakeholder to clarify their desires and help them to guide the next steps.

This is essentially Jerry Weinberg's rule of three and orange juice test so I claim no great novelty here. What I do claim is that I feel a lot better when I follow these steps than when I instinctively reject some request based on poor assumptions and no conversation, landing myself in a needlessly defensive position.

P.S. just to make this harder, don't forget that you could also be misinterpreting and underestimating requests that you say "yes!" to. It just doesn't usually feel so bad (at the time).
Image: https://flic.kr/p/2etM44v

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