“Is that possible?”

Of course it is. That’s not really what they mean when they ask. What they’re asking is, “Is that practical?” which may have a different answer.

When I get asked if building a project is possible, what I’m really being asked to weigh is:

• The hardware cost
• The dev time cost
• The opportunity cost
• The ongoing maintenance

All relative to what we can afford. It’s usually a hard question. As developers, I’ve noticed a tendency in my peers and myself to quickly answer, “Yeah, no problem! I can have that done in a week.” That’s two mistakes…one, I didn’t take time to explain the various costs to the company this will have. Two, I gave an estimate without digging into the details first.

Try this instead: “Definitely! But here’s what it’ll cost”

This has a few important benefits over the quick “sure, no problem” answer:

• You’re still being agreeable and saying it can be done
• You’re taking into account that nothing is free and that this will cost the company something
• You’re giving leadership the opportunity to weigh the cost/benefits for themselves, instead of taking that all on for yourself

Developers often put too much burden on themselves by making this decision solely on their own without communicating the costs and risks to others. While it’s great to take on responsibility, it’s unfair to leadership to not communicate the downsides you know about. Plus, this gives you an opportunity to still say whether you think their idea is worth the cost, while also getting a second opinion.

I still slip up occasionally. It’s too easy to take the question literally and answer without thinking. But, when I do answer correctly, I find the conversation goes much better.

Have you run into this before? What do you say to this question and how does the conversation go with leadership?