Oct 19, 2010
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Ask Your Client “Why?”
Next time your client comes to you with a tight deadline, an aggressive schedule or fast turnaround, ask them “why?”
And if they are coming to you every week with tight deadlines and crunch-times and overnight deadlines or deadlines in hours instead of days or weeks, ask them “why?”
Ask them why it’s such an emergency. Ask them why it’s so important and why they need it so quickly. And did they have the need yesterday for it? Will they have the need tomorrow for it?
50% of the time they won’t have an answer.
50% of the time they are just getting something off their desk or trying out a new idea or seeing if they can relieve some of their pressures by having something new come out of your department or your team.
(You can usually tell if this is happening when they don’t have time to look at the draft work-product you produced for them or to comment on sketches or mock-ups or even the tweaks you made based on their initial feedback.)
Next time they come to you with super rush deadlines, ask “why?”
And build it into your process.
You’ll get a lot more work done. And your clients will be happier when you have the time to dedicate to the jobs they truly value for their longer-term needs.
Incidentally, “why?” doesn’t mean you’re turning away the work or saying you won’t do it. The idea is to put a business case ahead of the expenditure of resources. It’s about prioritizing work so you can focus on the most important jobs and knowing what the work-product is supposed accomplish.
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You’re so right. I’ve found that often people think something is “rush” simply because that’s what they’ve been told, or it’s been on their desk for awhile and they forgot to move it. Not that it’s actually a rush.
I’d like to see more businesses operate under this, at least give it a try.