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The next mistake which is really easy to make is to answer the question what's the best you can do.

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It goes really well.

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And of course it's our job to answer any question we're asked and it's natural to answer that question.

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But you've got to be really careful about this particular question because if somebody says what's the

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best you can do if everything works if the I.T. works first time nobody is off sick.

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You haven't forgotten anything.

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The weather is perfect.

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How quickly do you think you might be able to do this job for me.

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If you answer that question if you say well I might be able to do it in six weeks.

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You are now committed to doing it in six weeks and however you word your out.

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You're going to be committed to that number even if you say well it's highly unlikely everything is

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going to go well but if in theory nobody is off sick and the I.T. works and the weather is brilliant

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I might be able to do it in six weeks.

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All your customer hears is la la la la la la la la.

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Six weeks.

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So how ever many provisos you put in.

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They won't hear those they'll just hear six weeks.

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So don't say that number six.

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Once it's out of the bottle you can never get it back in.

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So if you do say six weeks you're pretty much do.

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I mean obviously there is a tiny chance you'll achieve it but you've probably got a 99 percent probability

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that you're going to fail.

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So what should you say when your boss says or your customer says if it's an external project how quickly

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might you be able to do this for me.

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And the answer is to weasel out.

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So what I would say is wow quite a difficult project there's a lot of unknowns.

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We got some difficult I.T. in this one.

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It could easily take 10 or 11 weeks I reckon.

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Don't say six.

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I'm just using six as an example obviously you'll know what your range is.

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But whatever that number is don't give it to them and it's the same for cost if they say if it goes

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really well and nothing goes wrong.

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How cheaply might you be able to do this for us.

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Don't say I can do it for six hours and say well is quite a lot of unknowns.

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I think it could easily take 10 or 11 thousand to get this done.

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OK.

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So weasel out and don't are the question.

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And if you're a boss don't ask the question because if you're the boss and you say to the person how

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quickly might I get this.

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And they say you might get it in six weeks.

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That number is useless.

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That's a number that they're almost certainly not going to achieve.

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So it's quite dangerous if you ask that question you'll probably go I think he brilliant six weeks and

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you'll include that in all your plans and your promise to customers that will be in your financial forecasting

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and that's going to be awful because it's not going to happen.

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And then you'll have to go back at them and blame them.

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But should you blame them because really you should blame yourself for asking that question.

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So don't ask them what the best possible time is ask them for a range or ask them for an average or

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even better ask them for an average plus a safety margin.

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Give me a 90 percent reliable forecast is what you should really be asking for.

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But just ask them to show you the plan.

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It's the best thing.

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Show me your plan so what's involved in this project or whatever you do don't start asking them to give

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you a really optimistic forecast because you're not going to get it.