Easy is a relative term
- for a professional swimmer, 1000 meters is an easy swim
- for a professional basketball player, a slam dunk is easy
- for the average person, tying your shoes is easy
Take this into consideration. Assume that a new client of your asked for those 3 things. You thought to yourself "well, I can get a professional swimmer for the first task, a professional basketball player for the second, and I can do the last task, all in all this is an easy request". So you quote the client a cost and a time and get to work on things. You schedule the professionals to come in and have everything set to go -- you're even ahead of schedule. You call up your client to schedule the presentation and tell them to meet you at the local gym next Tuesday at 3:00pm. Your client pauses for a second and asks "why are we meeting there?". Now it's your turn to pause and then you say "well, it's for the demo of the three tasks that you asked to see". The client then goes on to explain that the swimming should be an outdoor swim in water with 2-3 foot waves, the basketball player needs to jump from a distance of 8 feet from the rim and the rim is at a height of 12 feet, and the person tying their shoes should be a dyslexic middle-aged man with lower back pains.
A level playing field
Easy assumes that everybody involved is working on a level playing field, but in reality, how often does that really happen? I'd venture as to say never. Even team members who have been working on the same project together for 4 months can still have communication breakdowns -- I've been there.
Easy doesn't do it
While it isn't my first rule, it's up there in the list. Do not use the word easy when discussing the difficulty of a task. Don't do it. I beg of you, don't do it.
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