In the business of technology consulting, there are times when I’ve heard this statement. It’s Easy! Perhaps the single biggest thing I’ve learned through a decade and a half of consulting is, people use this phrase when they are feeling overly confident.
What do I mean by that? Well it turns out in psychology there are all sorts things we communicate with our spoken language & body language. Some of those things we aren’t even conscious of. In the case of the statement “It’s easy” your first thought may be about all the intricate details that have yet to be ironed out, all the hiccups that may happen along the way. Or you may just simply be thinking of Murphy’s Law that always seems to rear it’s ugly head at the worst time.
Truth is when you hear this statement, you may also be inclined to think of it as a statement of fact. The person saying that they have reviewed all the facts and ascertained that task x is in fact a trivial one.
Of course one doesn’t want to be the naysayer either, but you can raise concerns while still acknowledging both sides. My tack is first to repeat what the person said in more detailed language. By reiterating all of the details, it can sometimes illustrate right there some hidden complexity and weaken the sense of triviality to the task at hand.
A Software Developer
A few years back I had subcontractor developer working on a project. We went over some details about what changes needed to happen. A web-based analytical tool needed some additional search functionality. We went over how that search would index documents in the site. The developer explained to me “That’s easy. No problem”. I was suspicious.
As development unfolded we hit a bump in the road. Besides the database indexing, additional xml documents needed to be indexed in order for the search function to work properly. That added quite a bit of additional complexity because the search solution developer had envisioned couldn’t deal with that xml data.
A Business Prospect
I was recently reviewing a contract with a prospect, and going over items and deliverables. They explained that for the database portion we’ll just use Amazon RDS, instead of installing MySQL and configuring the server manually. “This piece will be easy”. Unfortunately using Amazon’s solution is still not push-button in any event. These types of oversimplifications are fine if you’re working on a time and materials basis because the complexity of the project will unfold organically, and the process will educate everyone involved. But if you are trying to do a fixed fee project, these can be a harbinger of trouble later on.
Conclusion
When you hear people say “That’s Easy” understand that they are only expressing their confidence, despite their assurances. If you are not equally confident, you’ll both need to discuss details until you reach a middle point. If it scares you to hear someone say something is EASY, think of it as a warning flag that you are not both on the same page. Then remedy the situation with ample communication.
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