It would be nice if we stopped saying “it would be nice”
By: Ryan Andrews
Tags: Product Management, Software Engineering, Software Development, Tech, Startup

We’ve all heard it. We’ve all used it. Do we even know what it means? “It would be nice…”

A lot of things “would be nice,” but that doesn’t mean we actually need them. It doesn’t mean they’d actually make an impact. As a product manager, “nice” does nothing to narrow the field, nothing to clarify priority or impact. We need clarity here. I’m interested in must-haves, strategic initiatives, and features that will transform products. Is there any time left for “nice”?

Let’s not fall too deep into my pit of cynicism here. Yes, “nice” options ARE nice, cool, and great. I get that, and I just used more meaningless words to describe them.

In a perfect world we would get and achieve all the nice things we want. In a perfect world, “it would be nice” would never need to be used. Classifying choices would be meaningless since we’d be able to magically achieve everything and get everything we wanted. Choices would be irrelevant. How nice!

That is obviously not the world we live in, but it would be nice if we did.

The real world blasts a dozen choices in our faces, each of them slathered in contextual ooze, each of them begging to be selected, few of them actually being essential, and the rest of the world impatiently waiting on us to pick the best one so that our teams and our company can get back to work.

The real world thinks everything is “nice” or at least “it would be.” Many ideas are automatically given this default classification without any further consideration of their value or the trade-offs.

Hey, product manager! Why aren’t you doing all these nice things we requested? Why wouldn’t you do that nice thing? It is right here in your face just do it okay please thank you. It’s NICE!

Pictured: Ryan’s consolidated hierarchy of incoming request language

Rejecting “nice”

“It would be nice” is like most other phrases — common and not given a second thought. At a startup, with no shortage of ideas and not enough resources to do them all, “it would be nice” can mean different things to different people. For some it means “I really think we should do this, but I guess that is up to you as the product manager.” For others it is spit and forget — “we aren’t going to do this but I am going to say it anyway.”

No matter the interpretation, there are practical applications to the rejection of “it would be nice” options:

Rejecting the nice options immediately narrows the number of options for what to work on next — let’s focus on strategy and essentials right now. Initially rejecting the nice options allows us to see which of them bubble back up to the surface over time — some nice things won’t even be nice a month from now. Saying no is essential — we quite literally can’t do everything, we just can’t.

Clarifying trade-offs

Make trade-offs clear. I repeat. Make trade-offs clear.

Rejecting “it would be nice” requests is all about communication. Without clear communication, our decisions, even if perfectly sensible, may be taken as dismissive and short-sided. The importance of ensuring that everyone understands the trade-offs can’t be understated.

In our explicitly imperfect world, every nice thing we do means there is another nice or essential thing we are not doing. Make these trade-offs clear. Conversations around nice initiatives, features, or options become more tangible for all parties involved when the alternative is solidified.

“I hear you. I agree, that sounds like something that has some benefits for our team and users. But if we take two weeks to work on that, our quarterly goal will be in jeopardy and we will have to push our timeline on that new feature set back by two weeks. We just can’t do that right now.”

This transparency and bluntness makes something nice appear not so “nice,” even to the person who originally suggested it.

Make trade-offs clear.

Killing “it would be nice”

While I want “it would be nice” to die in a fiery volcano, I don’t want to burn all the “nice” things along with it. I just want clarity amongst all parties involved. I want to stop using the dreaded “nice” term to describe these things.

Whenever possible, we should challenge this phrase. Translate incoming “nice” speak into language around goals and initiatives so that the items that are in service of strategy can be picked out.

It can be tough. It will almost always be easier to just ignore any “it would be nice” statement that is tossed out and hope it never comes up again. But that won’t help you really understand the problem, and it won’t help the requester think about options in a way that speaks to prioritization and impact. When your whole team moves away from “nice” language and starts speaking in more strategic terms, the value of conversations will increase significantly.

How can we start this change? Challenge everything! So it’s “nice” — great. Let’s learn a bit more.

Why would it be nice?

How nice?

For whom would it be nice?

How quickly will it become nice for these people?

Is that nicer than this other thing?

Let’s review all the other things that will get pushed back. Would is still be nice?

This process will feel robotic. You’ll need to ask these same questions (or similar ones) over and over and over, each and every time an “it would be nice” phrase is uttered in your presence. But, eventually the language and the conversation around you can change. The “it would be nice” phrases will become “bring value to users” and “help us towards this strategic initiative” and “improve our velocity” and “impact our goal progress” phrases.

It can be a grind, but if it helps turn conversations towards strategy, it’s worth it.

Good luck out there! Challenging “nice” things is tough and not a celebrated role! I hope this post can help you on that mission. It would be nice if it did.