You have been in that meeting.
Twenty minutes of careful discussion about the schedule, while everyone in the room knows the schedule is not the problem. The problem is that the requirements changed three weeks ago and nobody wants to say it.
So people talk around it. Politely. Precisely. Uselessly.
Someone eventually says the real thing, and the whole conversation changes in about four seconds.
You can be that person, and it is a smaller act of courage than it looks.
Here is what stops most people. You assume that because nobody has said it, you must be the only one thinking it, and saying it will make you the difficult one.
Almost always the opposite is true. Six other people are waiting for someone to go first, and the relief in the room when you do is very obvious.
The trick is how you name it.
Do not name it as an accusation. Name it as an observation, and leave room to be wrong.
I might be misreading this, but it feels like we are planning around a requirement that already changed. Is that fair.
That is it. That sentence does the work.
You have said the unsaid thing. You have not blamed anyone for it. And you have handed the room an easy way to confirm or correct you.
A few things that make this go well.
Say it early, before people have committed publicly to the wrong plan and have pride tangled up in it.
Say it about the situation, never about a person. The requirement changed is a fact. You changed the requirement is a fight.
And then stop talking. Let the silence sit. Someone will fill it, and usually they will fill it with the truth.
You will be wrong sometimes, and that is fine. Being occasionally wrong out loud costs far less than a team that quietly builds the wrong thing for a month.
Every team has an elephant. Most teams are waiting for permission.
Be the one who gives it.
– Asael Shinder
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