The hardest conversations are not about bad ideas. They are about reasonable ideas that will not survive the client's platform, budget, or organization, where the person suggesting it has already told their manager it is happening.
What works better for me than arguing is showing the cost. Not the price, the cost. A recommendation that needs six months of developer time is competing against everything else those six months could do, and putting that comparison in front of someone settles it faster than any technical objection.
What has never worked is being right in the meeting. Being right in writing, before the meeting, with the alternative already costed, works most of the time.
Where I still get it wrong is when the recommendation came from someone senior who has already committed to it publicly. At that point the technical argument is not the argument being had.
What do you do there?
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