Agile and Saying "NO"

  • The 4Ds Time Management
    1. Delete/Drop
    2. Delegate
    3. Defer
    4. Do
  • The First D: Delete or Drop
    1. Maintain a Not-to-do List
    2. Stop Doing
    3. You Don't Have To
    4. Stop Completing Surveys
    5. Drop That Call
    6. Stop Starting
      • Start finishing projects that are in-progress
      • Work on as few major tasks as you can on any given day (This principle is adopted from agile project management.)

-- from 4Ds Time Management: Delete, Delegate, Defer, Do

DHH and Basecamp are also great advocates for saying "NO":

  • What's your best time-saving shortcut for life hack?
    • Saying no
    • I say no to almost everything. Then I can commit myself fully to the few things that I do truly choose to do.

And there are other quotes for saying "NO":

Devon C. Estes on Twitter: "My #1 business trick when presented with a specific part of a big feature request that seems like it will be really hard is to ask "Can we not do that?" So often the answer is "Yes" and everyone is happier not having it."

Yiming Chen on Twitter: "Not all posts are worth reading and that's okay… "

I think the mindset to say NO to everything first matches the idea of Agile Software Development pretty well.

To me, part of being Agile is to validate idea before working on it and to say "no" to it as soon as we find it will not work1.

Being Agile sometimes means pursuing some sorts of minimalism. And achieving the expected results by doing nothing is the best, isn't it?2