In the book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown,  author talks about the importance of saying ‘No’ to focus on and completing what is important and essential right now.

In Scrum, you go into a Sprint having already made a commitment to a number of stories. What happens when your manager, supervisor, or one of the stakeholders comes to you requesting to take on one new thing on your plate. Are you a people pleaser? Do you say ‘Yes’?

If you said ‘Yes’, you already undermined the commitment the Team made to the sprint. A better approach would be to say ‘No’. But, how do you say ‘No’ to your manager, supervisor, or the stakeholder (who might be paying the bills)?

The “No” Repertoire

In the book, Greg suggests having a ‘No’ repertoire handy. You can get to this list when faced with a situation where you have to say ‘No’, and say it gracefully. Here is my version of the ‘No’ repertoire for Scrum teams.

• No. We can not take on this new Story as we are already ‘in flight’ into a new Sprint.
• Yes, we may be able to take on this new Story. But, what are you willing to de-prioritize from our current Sprint?
• Thanks for this new Story. We can put it on our Product Backlog, and take it on in the next Sprint if it is still your Priority.
• We can take on this new Story, but are you willing to put the success of the current Sprint on the line for this new Story?
• Can you please explain the business reasons behind this urgency (on this new Story)?
• Why can’t this new Story wait till we get into next Sprint?

Yes, you can say ‘No’ to your stakeholders. You just have to learn the art of saying ‘No’ gracefully!