No, no, no, no it can’t be done… Oh, you did it

Once upon a time at the workplace, a large credit union. On a project that had some big walls to climb, money and firm deadline constraints and a technology problem. It was assigned to be lead by specific manager because - well a SVP and stakeholder wanted them to fail and be on record for failing. It's corporate BS at it's finest.

The project team members where hand selected; with the lowest and long time technical engineer being Mark. He was known for not knowing and can't be done. As the project manager, this project was going to be tricky and challenging. I knew why each person was selected and I knew the expectation. I asked for one addition to my team, a new engineer, to have him sit to see how we manage projects.

Let me introduce you to Mark. Mark's top speed was sloth. Had to take lunch at a specific time. Had a lot of work in general and projects were low on his priorities. He was close to retirement. Didn't like change. Zero desires to do anything more than his small minimum. His favorite word is no. No to change. No research. No to programming options. No effort. No to just about everything. 

We had 8 weeks. The kick off meeting started to turning into a complaint session and no one wanted to be involve as there was no solution that didn't cost money. I knew there was a simple solution. I knew we could build it, test it, and implement it out and training could quickly develop training. I outlined the solution in the second project meeting. Mark lost it and stormed out.

The solution was an add-on screen pop out onto an existing screen the front line staff used every day. It would automatically pull in data and through a series of quick questions do an auto approve or decline, then pop out to the print the document for a wet signature. I knew that it could be done because I worked with another engineer on a simple version that connected two different systems with a bridge. I knew that Mark did not have the capabilities to pull it off.

I needed him to 'quit' the project, so the new engineer to complete the work necessary. Sometimes it's useful to know what buttons to push. Mark did show for the walk through - he was impressed. The other stakeholders were very impressed - I received the higher employee recognition the organization had. Ad the SVP who wanted me to fail - they had to write the speech and hand me the very heavy crystal award with daggers in their eyes. Mark was the first to stand and clap.