Sooner or later, a stakeholder will ask you to build something that appears to have no benefit to end users. Or tiny benefit to a small fraction of users. What are your options when faced with an ask that could waste your team’s time and resources? And for which—when it fails—you will ultimately be held accountable? Here’s a few ideas:

1. Help them create a business case for their ask

Start by assuming that you don’t have the full picture, and that their ask actually will increase business value. By walking through their thoughts on why this feature is important to the business now, who it is meant to serve, and what your stakeholder’s ideas on success metrics might be, you can create a mutual understanding of the problem trying to be solved and fill them in on information they might be lacking as to the complexity or resources required.

Through these conversations, you may be able to suggest a better solution, or even change your own mind on the value of the initial proposal. As a bonus, you will have documented an expected outcome and can then circle back with the stakeholder after release to talk about whether the outcome was achieved.

2. Create a framework for submitting and evaluating requests

This option has more work up front, and requires some behavior training, but depending on your situation could be a worthwhile undertaking.

Here you create a form (Google Form, Typeform, or whatever system you like to use) where the stakeholder documents:

• The reason behind the ask
• Metrics indicating its potential impact
• Markets the request will serve
• Expected success outcomes
• Level of priority
• Desired release timeframe

and any other information you find helpful. Creating this form, and reminding requesters to use it, gives you the benefit of collecting all requests in a single spot where they can easily be compared with one another. The act of filling in the form requires the stakeholder to think more holistically about their idea (perhaps abandoning it along the way?).

3. Ask them how to reprioritize work that is currently underway

You know what the active pipeline looks like, so ask the stakeholder how they would like to reprioritize the work being done in order to accommodate their request. Remind them which users are impacted by the work being done now, so that they can weigh it against the userbase they are trying to serve.

Best case: they reprioritize sensibly or determine that their ask isn’t so important.

Worst case: they halt everything to create this new feature, but at least you are no longer the one responsible for the change in timelines!

4. Thanks for the suggestion, we’ll add it to the backlog

Look, this is risky and not a great option. But sometimes, it’s the only way. If a stakeholder won’t engage with you in a reasonable manner, despite numerous good-faith attempts, you might have to pull this one out. Soften it by adding that you’ll revisit its priority regularly based on user feedback. Hopefully they’ll go away feeling satisfied, and forget all about their request, or not bring it up for some time. When they do, ask them again where they’d prioritize it against other things on the roadmap. And be careful not to use this too often, or it’ll lose its effectiveness.

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