“Can’t we just…”
Imagine this: You’re in your fifth back-to-back half hour meeting. Your to do list is at least twice as long as it was this morning. You’ve been dealing with a crazy problem all day where you need to do a super creative technical workaround for a major customer because you have all this tech debt in your product and no time to fix it. You’re now presenting your quarterly roadmap update to a group of executives. And then you hear it: “Can’t we just…”
Well, you expected this question didn’t you? Because you’re prepared for this meeting. And you have a handy explanation in layman’s terms for why the simple yet impossible solution your VP just proposed won’t work.
And if you don’t have a technical reason, or you didn’t expect that particular idea, you say you’ll get back to them. Because sometimes, unexpected “can’t we just” questions are actually pretty helpful in thinking outside the box. Sometimes, “can’t we just” sparks new conversations and new ideas. Sometimes, “can’t we just” simplifies a complicated solution into a simpler plan.
“Can’t we just” has helped me out several times in my career.
Discover Communication Problems
I was working on a complicated daily forecast email for a commercial building energy reduction product. The system that did the calculations for the email was having a number of issues. The SVP of Product asked in a meeting, “Can’t we just do the calculations manually in Excel?”
There were so many reasons why this wouldn’t work, but I went back and thought about it anyway. I figured out that we’d need 100 person-hours every week to do the manual calculations versus maybe 200 hours of total dev time to fix the problem completely. But beyond the ROI, this analysis made me realize that we had a communication problem and the SVP simply didn’t know how complicated the product had become. If someone has a “can’t we just” question that ignores the complexity of the system, it may mean that you haven’t adequately explained the problem.
Take a Different Perspective
In another project, we were working to help truck drivers travel more comfortably with their pets (mostly small dogs). We were trying to separate the driver from the dog to avoid distraction on the road. We tried a number of ways of containing the dog in the truck cab, but they weren’t working out. Finally, we decided to flip the problem on its head. “Can’t we just contain the driver instead?” The driver isn’t trying to go anywhere while he’s driving and will more easily submit to his containment. Sometimes if you’re stuck on a problem, use “can’t we just” to look at the problem from a different perspective.
Start With a Simpler Solution
At another company, we were trying to get a photo of an industrial process every time it happened. Ideas in the room mostly centered around building something homegrown, which would take a lot of time and maintenance. I said, “Can’t we just mount a security camera on the ceiling above the equipment to take photos and upload them to the cloud?” We could use motion detection to sense the event of interest and capture it, and to log the time. This solution helped us see if customers even wanted the photos before investing in an expensive photo capture process. Sometimes, “can’t we just” will help you find a simpler solution, at least at first to try out the concept.
So, the next time you’re faced with a “can’t we just” question, take a step back and really consider the question. Maybe we can just do that!
Have you had a “can’t we just” moment? Please share in the comments!
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