March 19, 2008
Don’t promise…
You won’t have to keep them. That’s right.
In human error and that mostly of judgement of how things would fall in place at a time in future, we make promises that we can’t keep. Promises hurt your business if you don’t keep them.
The better way is to under promise. Instead of trying to play Microsoft, give a date range when you’re estimating delivery times and don’t pick one particular date. Say I’ll get back to you soon instead of a couple of hours. If you think something will finish tomorrow, imagine something will go wrong tomorrow and then reschedule your commitment. Don’t say yes to deadlines that your customers propose. They have no idea of what you may be involved in. Tell them politely, we’ll schedule and get back to you.
Making promises are deadly. Under promising and over delivering is what works. Under promise.
