The B.E.S.T. way to say No

Product managers work with limited resources and competing priorities, and the most important tool at their disposal is the word No. But, saying no is never easy and can often lead to uncomfortable situations. It is important how PMs say No; No said in the right way can not only save relationships but can also go a long way of building them.

So, how to say No? Here is an introduction of B.E.S.T. framework which can help to effectively say the word No

B = Because, E = Empathy, S = Situation, and T = Timelines

Let’s look at a few real examples of how to use the above framework

Example 1: Your development lead asks you to prioritize tech debt work which is slowing down their team. There is no way you can prioritize that work in the current sprint as you need to ship a critical feature that is needed by the business.

Dev Lead: “We need to spend the next sprint to remove tech debt from the system”

PM: “No, we cannot”

The above answer with no context can lead to possible conflict and impact the PM’s working relationship with the development team. Now, let us how we can use the B.E.S.T. framework to answer the same question differently.

PM: “No, we cannot (give a brief explanation) because we need to work on simplifying…