Say Yes – or say No? What to Do When Faced With the Impossible

Johanna Rothman

MAY MEETING
Tuesday, May 29, 2007

We’re all faced with choices daily about how much work we can accomplish, and how much new work we can add to our workload. But how many of us know how much we can do? It’s not easy to estimate how long our work will take, and priorities shift—sometimes daily. What can we do?

In this experiential presentation, Johanna will first show the costs of multitasking. Then, we’ll discuss ways to say No so that your agreements to add more work is a true agreement and not a placating Yes—and not a non-career-enhancing conversation.

Part of how you can say yes or no is to make the work more visible to your management (no matter where you are in the organization). But sometimes, that’s not enough. In that case, it’s worth considering your mission, how you know what’s strategically important work, and making sure you’ve built a relationship with your manager before you need to have the tough conversation about what you can and can’t do.

Johanna Rothman consults, speaks, and writes on managing high-technology product development. She assists managers, teams, and organizations to become more effective by applying her pragmatic approaches to the issues of project management, risk management, and people management. She’s helped Engineering organizations, IT organizations, and startups hire technical people, manage projects, and release successful products faster.

The presentations is on the last Tuesday of the month at Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, 123 Queen Street West, across from New City Hall.