Someone asks you for something. A review by Friday, two days on their integration, a spot in your sprint, a call at a time that ruins your evening. You cannot do it, or you can only do it by dropping something that matters more.
What most people do here is the worst available option. They go quiet. Not out of rudeness, but because a refusal is uncomfortable to write, so the message sits unanswered while they hope the situation resolves itself. Four days later the person is still waiting and now they are also annoyed, and you have converted a small no into a large one.
Speed is the whole thing. A no on the same day is a minor inconvenience that someone can plan around. A no after a week is damage. If you know the answer, send it within the hour, even if the message is three lines.
Refuse the request, not the person. I cannot take this on before the end of the month. Not, I am too busy, which sounds like a judgement about their priorities, and not an elaborate account of your workload, which invites negotiation about whose work matters more.
Give one honest reason and stop. I am on the migration until the fourteenth. That is enough. A reason that goes on for a paragraph reads as a case being built, and people start looking for holes in it.
Then offer the piece you can actually do, if there is one, and be specific about its size. I cannot review the whole thing, but I will look at the data model on Thursday morning for half an hour. Or point sideways, properly. Priya wrote that service and would be quicker than me.
If it is genuinely a maybe, say when the maybe ends. I will know on Wednesday whether I have the capacity. Then tell them on Wednesday, including when the answer is still no.
And when the priority call is not yours to make, route it rather than absorbing it. Say that you can do it if it goes ahead of the migration, and that your lead is the one to decide. That is not passing the buck. It is putting the decision where the information is.
Your yes only means something in a place where your no is possible.
– Asael Shinder
