Learning How to say "No" as a Product Manager

One of the most talked about qualities of successful Product Managers is “Saying No” to stakeholders. However, very few talk about how to learn to say No.

So, here’s some tips on how to Say No to stakeholders as a product manager!

Tip#1 – Never say “No”!

Instead, say something like “I’ll put it in the backlog and we can review it together in the next prioritisation session”.

There is a high chance that the idea rush that a person had is going to die down (if it was illogical) before the next session. In the other case, if it is indeed a great idea, you don’t want to go down in history as the person who said “No” to a world changing idea (read here about Western Union’s memo from 1876 where they refused to buy the Telephone patent and called it “hardly more than a toy”).

Tip#2 – Use data and research-informed decisioning

Ask the person who put up the feature request present their case in the prioritisation session and answer the following questions:

• Who is the target customer for this feature?
• What value does it serve to the customer?
• What business value does it bring?
• Fat marker sketch* for how they want the feature to work

It helps achieve two purposes. Firstly, it allows everyone to make a data-informed decision on whether to choose or drop the request. Secondly, it automatically filters out baseless requests. There is a high chance that the person gives up on the request before even initiating this work (if they don’t truly believe in the idea) or realise the shortcomings mid-way and withdraw the request themselves.

Last year, we used this approach while conducting a company-wide Call for IDEAs and used the submission template below:

* Fat Marker Sketch - concept used from Shape Up (by Ryan Singer).

Although we ended up receiving only a dozen ideas, all of them were already thought through and had a solid business case attached.

Tip#3 – Debrief on the cost of saying “Yes”

No matter how trivial the concept of fixed team capacity might sound to you, most other stakeholders often don’t share the same understanding. So it is often worthwhile to explain to them the cost of moving forward with this select i.e. dropping something else from the roadmap.

Tip#4 – Fix the bigger issue!

If a stakeholder pushes too hard for a particular request, there is a very high chance that they are either not aligned with the strategy, or did not have a buy-in in the roadmap. In both cases, it is essential to fix the bigger problem first by reviewing the stakeholders' involvement in strategic and roadmap discussions. This can be achieved by involving the cross-functional representatives in the roadmap prioritisation sessions. All prioritisation sessions should start with a recap of the already agreed strategy and roadmap to serve as a refresher for everyone. 

Yet another reason not to say No straightaway and route the discussion to the next prioritisation session!