4 ms·

I have found that "No problem, which of your projects may I put on hold for that?" is a pretty effective way of saying "No". Doubly useful, because if they act

I have found that "No problem, which of your projects may I put on hold for that?" is a pretty effective way of saying "No". Doubly useful, because if they actually want it enough to have it done anyway, they will free up the time required for it by themselves. The important thing here is to memorize another phrase: "Certainly. Could you send me a quick email about that reprioritization?" Which is just a very graceful and stylish way of saying: "Can I have that in writing?"

DangitBobby 3y ago
And if you have to deal with someone who can't be bothered to write an email for you, you can just agree verbally and send them a summary email afterwards. Either they respond or they accept the summary implicitly.
whall6 3y ago
Maybe we have different goals, but if you want to grow in your career this is terrible advice. I get it, we can’t do everything, but surely there’s something you can put to the side.
- jakewins 3y ago
  I’ve found the opposite FWIW - in many orgs you get rewarded for getting stuff built, and a powerful tool for that is to show product and upper management the tradeoffs of their requests, to counter scope creep. “I can move the team off what they are doing to accommodate this request, but we will need to deprioritise <thing you asked for last week> if we want to stay on schedule”
- usrbinbash 3y ago
  I am not putting anything aside. My employer is. My time is a resource my employer has at his disposal. He pays me and in exchange gets to decide how he wants to allocate my time. My job includes giving realistic estimates on how long things take to accomplish. When asked to do something that I know cannot be done due to resource and time constraints, I's my duty to tell my employer as much, so he can make a strategic decision. And in my experience, employers value that input.

DangitBobby 3y ago

And if you have to deal with someone who can't be bothered to write an email for you, you can just agree verbally and send them a summary email afterwards. Either they respond or they accept the summary implicitly.

whall6 3y ago

Maybe we have different goals, but if you want to grow in your career this is terrible advice. I get it, we can’t do everything, but surely there’s something you can put to the side.

jakewins 3y ago
I’ve found the opposite FWIW - in many orgs you get rewarded for getting stuff built, and a powerful tool for that is to show product and upper management the tradeoffs of their requests, to counter scope creep. “I can move the team off what they are doing to accommodate this request, but we will need to deprioritise <thing you asked for last week> if we want to stay on schedule”
usrbinbash 3y ago
I am not putting anything aside. My employer is. My time is a resource my employer has at his disposal. He pays me and in exchange gets to decide how he wants to allocate my time. My job includes giving realistic estimates on how long things take to accomplish. When asked to do something that I know cannot be done due to resource and time constraints, I's my duty to tell my employer as much, so he can make a strategic decision. And in my experience, employers value that input.