Saying Yes to Say No

  Communications Management   Stakeholder Management   ProjectsAtWork  

When faced with a burdensome change request, don’t just roll over or flat-out refuse. Instead, use a ‘conditional yes’ to buy time and develop a full picture of the impact. You may make the case to nix the change, but if you still end up implementing it, at least everyone will know what it takes and why it’s important.

Consider this scenario: You’re in the weekly program team meeting and the marketing rep proposes that you change the color of the control box chassis your team is developing. Instead of the brushed metal finish your team designed, she’d like you to just paint it Intel Blue. There are some reasonable marketing arguments for this change and the program team is looking for your buy-in. You know that the design for the chassis is completed and your team just finished the fit check. Orders for production volumes have been placed, so changing the exterior finish requires a lot more than just a can of Krylon. At this point you have three options, and which one you choose can greatly affect the amount of hassle this change generates for you and your team.

Your first choice is to just say, “No!” I call this the “Hard No”. You can use the argument that it would be too expensive and your team doesn’t have time to do this along with everything else they have on their plate. The problem here is that you’ve shut down…

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