Page 41 of The Hard Launch

“Interesting,” Jude says, leaning in.

“Isn’t it? I don’t have qualitative data, but it looks like their customers hate the partnership strategy enough to jump ship. Maybe we dodged a bullet.”

He scratches his neck like he does when he’s thinking. “Have you sent this to marketing? I bet it’s worth doing some targeted ads or something. This could be an opening to go after their user base.”

“Maybe promote a webinar about how easy it is to make the switch,” I suggest.

By the time we walk out a half hour later, I feel relieved. Jude and I are back to normal, whatever that is. I peel off to go to my desk and he pauses.

“Hey. You didn’t do a slide on Kyle,” he says.

“Kyle is a tool,” I tell him. He continues on to his office, but I can tell that he’s smiling.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

JUDE

We have a lot of parts partially done, but we don’t have anything all the way done. And we don’t know that all the partially done parts will play nicely together.

“The teams are making good progress,” I tell Edmund on our morning call. “But we’re not in the clear. There’s a good chance we won’t have it all launch-ready by day thirty.”

“You’re full of honesty this morning,” he says.

Earlier I presented my nine-box grid to him, and when Edmund asked me what I thought I should do about the individual in the bottom-left corner, I told him I already have a plan to manage Keith out. He’ll be gone by the end of next month.

“It takes a lot of guts to admit you made a bad hire,” he told me.

So I’m just going to keep telling the truth and see where it takes me.

Edmund asks me what percent confident I am that the team will deliver on time. Two weeks ago I would have hemmed and hedged and overthought, but today I just tell him sixty percent. It feels about right, it communicates that there is a real risk that we might not hit the deadline. Also I’ve come to understand there’s never one correct answer; it’s whatever answer I can make a case for.

“Hmmmm,” Edmund says. “Another assignment for you: make me a proposal for something I can fund that will make that confidence number higher. Put a budget on it, and if it makes sense I’ll be happy to get you the cash.”

I thank him and say I’ll have something over to him by early tomorrow.

“See?” he tells me. “I want you to succeed.”

“Fuck,” I say when I hang up. If Edmund really wanted us to succeed, he’d give us more time.

I open the task boards and realize quickly that there’s no point doing this by myself. I Slack Lacey, Trevor, and Dave, and ask them to meet me in the conference room in five.

“No Keith?” Dave asks.

I shake my head. I thought about it, then remembered his last lecture on Mythical Months and decided it’s not worth it. Maybe he’ll feel excluded out there and start calling some recruiters, but probably not.

I explain the situation and Edmund’s offer to the three of them.

“Sweet!” Trevor holds his fist up for me to bump.

“No,” Lacey tells him. “Put your fist down. It’s not sweet! it’s diabolical.”

I’m proud of her for recognizing the trap, but sad that she’s now this familiar with Edmund’s bullshit.

“We get extra funding. How’s that bad?” Dave asks.

“Jude can’t go back to him and say, ’nope, I couldn’t come up with anything.’ He has to find something reasonable to propose, even if it’s a waste of time.”

“Right. We end up with money we don’t want along with added pressure to deliver,” I finish.