I've worked in and with associations for well over 37 years now. And one of the things I've always loved and appreciated about association staffers is their willingness to do whatever is needed to get the job done.

But the problem is this "Yes, we can!" attitude can also lead to overwhelm and a lack of prioritization.

I see this most commonly in IT departments, especially those who have developer skills. Staff comes to them with a problem and their answer is "Yes, we can do that for you!" But too often that "yes" comes without the consideration of asking "But should we do that for you?"

In an ideal state, when a new request is made of IT (or anyone, for that matter), there needs to be a process that helps everyone decide whether or not the request should be fulfilled, how it will be fulfilled, and when it will be fulfilled. But what I see too often is requests are piled into an ever-growing list of "needs," and pretty soon everyone is unhappy (IT is overwhelmed and the rest of staff isn't getting what they want!).

There are lots of tools (e.g., Value–Effort Matrix, MoSCoW, RACI matrix) that can help with this. The tool is less important than the process itself. If your process is "Tell us what you need and we'll do it," you're going to be in big trouble quickly.

Remember: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.