4 Smart Ways To Say "NO" To A Business Request | Smart Tips

Saying NO to business requirements in a professional environment could be necessary due to below reasons;

  • Frequent changes or enhancement in project requirements/scope are causing the impact on the project timeline and it is taking project nowhere.
  • Ad-hoc requests i.e. emergency requests which require immediate action are sucking up the resources time, distracting project teams, and have the potential to push active projects behind schedule.
  • Requests are out of your project’s scope.



As a business analyst, there were many instances where I had to say “NO” to my stakeholder’s requirements due to issues like the tight timeline for the current project, Limited resources, out of scope requests, etc. Sometimes, you need to meet personally or in a meeting or simply need to write an email, but believe me, it’s very difficult because no matter how smartly you handle this situation, most of your stakeholders or clients will have the negative feeling after this.

Being a Business Analyst or Project Manager there are some common challenges and due to this they avoid saying NO to stakeholders or clients;

  • Making a good impression on stakeholders/clients.
  • Meeting organization’s expectations by managing the project within a given resource, timeline, and budget. Sometimes the expectation is unreasonable and it only results in worse output, hence wisely handling this scenario is a big challenge.

This is a fact that saying Yes is very easy and it makes the client or stakeholder happy but consequences of saying Yes for every request becomes very difficult to deal with in later phase of your project.

But it is also a fact that, in the heat of the moment, it's difficult for decision-makers to step back and say No to a request and it’s very difficult especially when you are facing a powerful internal stakeholder who wants his or her project done and not used to listen to NO for his/her requests.

Let’s see some way of saying no to request without offending a stakeholder/client or something which least it makes saying no sound less arbitrary;

1. Come up with Data/statistics:

One of the way to present statistics or data and let stakeholder understand the impact. But it’s helpful in technology organization where stakeholders have the analytic mindset to understand the impact. This could be used as supportive data while explaining your decisions.

Say no when there is really no option available i.e. communicate with every person in your department before coming to a conclusion because if you don’t find the alternative then you will definitely find the valid and strong reason to support your decisions.


2. Provide alternative with your decision:

It’s always good to go with some other alternative for your stakeholders if you can’t deliver exactly what they have requested because people want to know the other options if their way is not possible.

Suppose, you are unable to deliver additional requirements because it’s going way out of scope then it’s a good option to suggest that “It could be done in next phase but unfortunately, it’s not possible in previously agreed on the timeline”. This is the simplest one, you may come across the more critical scenario were finding the alternative will be another challenge. Try to make your stakeholder believe that there is hope for their requirement.

This could not be possible in all cases but saying “Not Now” rather “No” can be easier and at the same time less harsh for your stakeholder (Be honest and don’t try to fool your stakeholder because it will have its own consequences.


3. Showing the priorities:

Prioritization could be another good option to deny or say No to stakeholder’s request. You can let your priority item open for your stakeholders so that it would be easy for you to tell your story behind NO.

It’s a good option when you are getting multiple requests from the same department with high priority. You can show the current workload and let them know why their requests can’t be delivered now, but the request will be worked upon later.

You can highlight the resource availability issue if you have any. This is not simple though because making the priority is the first step but making those priorities visible is what makes this strategy powerful. It's difficult for a stakeholder, even a powerful stakeholder, to circumvent a prioritized and strategically valuable project for something that doesn't pass the "does this provide the most value" test.

Offering your stakeholder to prioritize their request and giving them an opportunity to say “No” or “Not now” to his or her own request and this could be the best strategy for you. It will be the win-win situation for both the parties.


4. Show the impact of saying Yes:

Showing the impact of saying “Yes” is a good option. As you know that each project is driven by cost i.e. labor cost, resource cost and these costs need to be expressed whenever one project is pushed ahead of another. You can highlight the additional cost or labor required to deliver the requirement. You can also highlight the impact of other priority items because of new requirements. Sometimes, it’s easy to get this work done by budget issue i.e. cost issues and this will not make your stakeholder unhappy because of you.

I found below the image on the internet and thought to share with you all:


Be more polite and more descriptive while saying no, delaying or rejecting any request. Because it’s Never Easy; Even if you do everything you can, you may still end up with bitter or grumpy internal stakeholders. You can expect to hear an earful of complaints, protests, and occasional shouts. The key is to be sincere, honest and be willing to lend a hand (or ear) when possible.

I tried to explain, what I’ve learned over the period of time from my personal experience. I’m sure there are the lot of other good ways to say NO or Not Now which you can share your experience, hence I would request you to share your comments and the good way to achieve this goal in the comment section of this article.


Hope you liked this article, Do let me know in the comment section if I missed anything in order to complete this article and make it more useful for other readers.

Don't forget to share with your friends and colleagues via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or any other social medium, because Sharing is Caring.

7 Comments

  1. Good post.

    I would like to add couple of points here.

    If the client/customer is insisting to implement the new requirement and if we do not know the impact of it, it is always better to do it phases (something like a Pilot phase).

    Saying 'NO' also depends on the type of stakeholder you are dealing with.In the interest of the project try to identify the stakeholder before saying 'No.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good post!

    An additional 'care' for saying 'No':

    An ideal BSA (working from IT side) could respond to client's new as well as high prioritized requirement saying, "We will certainly accomplish the new and the most important requirement as the first item to be addressed in the next release IN ORDER to respect y(our) agreed dead line for this release which is the existing foremost highest-requirement', to be met with".

    ReplyDelete
  3. Totally agree with you svisweswaran! every BA has their own trick to manage such situations. But simply saying Yes to everything causes big problem at later stage.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Would you be concerned with exchanging hyperlinks?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hello! I just would like to give a huge thumbs up for the great info you have here on this post. I will be coming back to your blog for more soon.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Would you like to explain? contact me at - http://www.buzzanalysis.com/contact/

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post