As a developer it can be frustrating sometimes when you can’t persuade management to change something you think is important. Maybe you’re not as productive as you could be because of something in the technology stack or some pattern in the code. Perhaps there’s a tool you think would be useful but you can’t persuade them to pay for.

The question here is do you have the context to understand why they’re saying no. Changing the technology stack may make you more productive but add work to other teams that makes the overall organisation less productive. A $12 per user per month tool may seem cheap to you, but if it means everyone on the team needs a seat, and the organisation is already paying for five different tools, then the cost needs to be justified against that and whatever budget is in place.

Figuring out the larger context of the decision can help you understand the why. You might not agree with the reasons but if there are some at least you will understand them. When you seeing a bigger picture you might also agree that the things you wanted to change don’t matter as much as you thought and there’s better things you could be doing.

How would you expand your view of what’s going on where you work?