How to say “No” without using the word …

Have you experienced that it is sometimes hard as a Product Owner or Product Manager to say “No” to new ideas, although you can almost clearly see that the business request probably wouldn’t survive a more thorough analysis of the value compared to effort?

You don’t have to say “No” and become the “No”-sayer. Just be curious about the value contained in the request and begin a dialogue that quickly can uncover if we should spend more time on the request.

12 ways to investigate and challenge the value

1. What is the purpose of the new request? Which outcome would you like to achieve?
2. How did the wish arose?
3. What business event starts the process – how is the current process affected?
4. Who should use the feature?
5. How many of these users do we have?
6. What do we think is important to them?
7. How often do we imagine that the features will be used? Is it daily? Weekly?
8. Are there any other stakeholders than the primary ones?
9. Are there specific dates to be taken into account?
10. Describe success criteria for solving the task – think about what a minimum solution can be.
11. What would the consequence be if we do not get the features in the next release – but in 2 months?
12. Are there other ways to achieve the same result with the features the system already has?

Which of these ways would come in handy in your situation?

Read more about Product Owner-ship courses:

Agile Product Owner-course

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