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> 17. Always tell your customer/user "yes", even if you're not sure.

I have found that you get higher marks for saying NO in the right occasions than being known as the one that always says YES.

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Learning to say no is the biggest challenge and virtue of the best developers out there. It's not a "no I can't do it" it's more of a "no I can't do it in that time" or "no I don't think it's the right way to go, here is how I think we should do it". Saying NO can make a difference between a successful project and a nightmare.

There's clearly a middle position to be had here. By saying NO if you're not completely confident you can do something, you miss out on the best learning opportunities. That said, if you suspect something cannot work, or isn't the right way of doing something for another possibly non-technical reason, being prepared to say NO is critical for delivering.

So possibly: If you always say NO, you never learn anything. If you always say YES, you never deliver anything.

That's a good way of putting it.

It's important to also put either answer in the context of how it will affect the Time, Cost and Quality Triangle of program management. The customer loves to hear 'yes' but sometimes don't realize that that 'yes' is going to typically mean more time and/or money.

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