How to give timelines and say “no”

As a product manager, you may often find yourself in situations where you are asked for timelines, or likewise forced to include a feature that wasn’t in the plans. These conversations are often frustrating and to be frank — quite scary. You risk disappointing customers, stakeholders, and often the leadership team.

At the same time, you do need to keep control of the roadmap and your team’s focus. So how do you balance the two?

As I was scrolling through one of the online product communities, a product manager was suffering from this exact problem, and found themselves in an uncomfortable situation: one where the problem would be “escalated to leadership.”

Let’s take a look at how to handle this in the future.

Saying no

One thing I’ve always been against are wide statements like “product managers must learn to say no.”

While it is true to a certain extent, what product people need to learn is how to say yes to the right thing. Most importantly, you need to learn how to say it with the right context — and with a heightened sense of empathy.

Simply saying “no” positions you in a negative light. You’ll be seen as the source of all things no; others won’t know how to approach you or explain things, and that will lead to negative team culture and broken relationships.

Instead of saying “no” bluntly or “I can’t provide you with a timeline,” have a little more empathy for the frustration the other person is trying to convey.

The reality is that when you have a product strategy and vision you are aiming for, there will be people that end up disappointed. You cannot build every feature for every customer that asks for something, but how you communicate that is even more important.

Communicating with empathy

Let’s go back to the original scenario: a user is frustrated, they escalated the issue with someone in the leadership team, and you’ve been asked to provide a timeline to fix the problem.

Before you give anyone any answers, be sure to get back to the customer directly. This can involve a personal email copying the member of the leadership team, or it can involve a face…