Why it's hard to say no

I know it’s hard for us to say no. Those who climbed the leadership ladder from the IT technical side of the organization may measure their productivity by the things they’ve done or built. When they go home at night, it may not seem like they’ve done “work” if their day was spent responding to server issues, or writing bug reports.

As a result, when an internal customer contacts one of these team members and asks if they can work on some special one-off project, it’s hard to say “no.” Because at the end of the day, doing a “one-off” task is something they can point to and say, “I did that.” Yet it’s important to realize that doing all these one-off projects hurts the IT team’s productivity in the long run.

A critical component to ensuring an IT organization can meet its needs is to standardize technology services where feasible. Nothing will hurt an IT team more than when someone in the IT organization makes a special one-off arrangement with another department to deliver some custom “one of a kind” service. Because when that happens, it sets a new standard that all of the IT organization needs to deliver on. Otherwise, customers will ask, “Why can’t you do that for me?” Or worse, “You just said ‘no’ to me, but you’re doing it for that other department.”

IT teams can do special projects for internal customers, but IT leaders need to find a balance. Generally, internal IT is organized for efficiency, where everything is streamlined, so the IT organization can provide more and better services to customers.

If an internal customer asks you for a special configuration, or to take on an application for them, consider what that means to the rest of your team, and to the IT organization as a whole. Avoid the temptation to say “yes” without a good strategic benefit. Remember that every one-off project you commit to is another variation in how you support your internal customers.