In general I agree. Some people, and even entire cultures, thinking that saying plain "no" is rude, and trying to soften it by replacing with "maybe" or "maybe

In general I agree. Some people, and even entire cultures, thinking that saying plain "no" is rude, and trying to soften it by replacing with "maybe" or "maybe later". It doesn't make sence to say "maybe later" f you use a "fixed time - fixed scope" type planning, e.g. Scrum sprints. But in case you use a more sane "fixed time - variable scope" approach (like for example in Shape Up or informal mini-waterfall SDLCs), then naturally there will be nice-to-have features/tasks with lower priorities, i.e. literally "maybe-s". Shape Up even have a notation for such scopes and tasks: Must-have scope -[ ] Must-have task 1 -[ ] Must-have task 2 -[ ] ~Maybe-later task 3 ~Nice-to-have scope -[ ] ~Optional task 1 -[ ] ~Maybe-later task 2 -[ ] ~Nice-to-have task 3 There are also methodologies where product people can continuously prioritize scopes/features by their value, signaling to the developers what they should implement first, and what they can leave out in case of running out of time.