When told to do more with less, success can be as big a career hazard as failure “Our financial situation is strained, and that’s putting it kindly. You’re going to have to find ways to do more with less. It’s time for that can-do attitude. Time to put your backs into it and show your mettle.” There’s no doubt you and your IT colleagues are hearing such talk from company management.It’s time to respond, “What are you, nuts?”Well, maybe that would be a bit intemperate. The right answer is, “Let me huddle with my team and put a plan together.” Of all the instructions given by a business leader to IT, none is fraught with more peril than “do more with less.” The naive among us might think the opposite — that it’s a chance to shine, to show how you can rise to a difficult occasion.But nothing can be further from the truth. That’s because anything you achieve beyond standard “continuous improvement” (incremental increases in effectiveness, usually in the 3 to 5 percent range) will be an admission of past incompetence.Did I say “admission”? Let’s make that “broadcast.” Let’s say you agree to do more with less, and succeed in a spectacular fashion. It might make you a lot of friends. More likely it will raise the question of why you didn’t start doing all the things that let you do more with less years ago.It’s a problem that’s always going to be with any employee. In times of stress, it’s accentuated, because in times of stress, people are more likely to be grumpy than grateful.All things considered, you’ll find it a lot safer to do less with less than to do more with less. The challenge is making your case in a way that leads to your stakeholders nodding their heads instead of grabbing their pitchforks. The economy is in tough shape — no news there. The most optimistic projections have it remaining in tough shape for some time to come. This isn’t a blip, and it’s going to personally affect us all, including IT leades and practitioners, for years. Everyone in IT, from service desk analysts right up to the CIO, deals with requests that have political consequences every day.In the hangover economy we’re in, politically charged requests will be more frequent and more strategic than they were when the kegger economy was in full swing, and the requesters — sober and headachy instead of … well, you know — are less likely to throw their arm over your shoulder to slur, “Hey, that’sh OK. I unnuhstan. We’re shtill friendsh, aren’t we?”There’s no request that’s more political than whatever variation of “do more with less” hits your desk. If you’re a developer, it will take the form of “Can’t you just squeeze this in?” If you’re the CIO, it will be, “We’re cutting your budget by 10 percent and adding three new projects to this year’s mandatory list.” Our goal for the Less with Less blog and the Slow IT movement is to give you some tools, tips, and techniques to get you through the day and the next budget cycle, and to spur some discussion. In other words, don’t be coy — post your own thoughts. Join the discussion group, add comments to the blog post, or write on our “wailing wall.” Just go to www.slowit.net.If you have ideas to share, please do so. And if you have any specific topics you’d like us to cover, please don’t be shy about it. Let us know and we’ll be sure to add them to the list.In the meantime, here’s your first tip: Faced with a request to do more with less, always remember the single more important rule for handling any request. There are two answers that are almost always the wrong ones to give, and one that’s always safe. The two wrong answers are “yes” and “no.” The safe bet? “Here’s what it will take.” Careers