Page 12 of One Night Billionaire

Anna had met with the full team Monday afternoon after agreeing to stay on and work on it. They had been hesitant, reserved, and a little angry. Before that hour-long meeting was over, she had the whole team eating out of her hands.

She had called him down halfway through to hear what they were saying about Terry, information he hadn’t gathered by digging through his digital trail. Terry was good, he had deleted things. A few members of the team were suspicious and had started saving emails to their hard drives.

It was a tough blow to accept to know that someone he had trusted was actively screwing everything up. Brian had managed to assuage the fears of the team and get them back on track, assured that they were going to be treated fairly going forward. He also emphasized his open-door policy if they had any issues.

Anna had encouraged them to use it if they felt they needed to. All genuine from her and he was once again shocked by her. Most managers he’d come across were upset by that offer to go around them, not her.

“The team isn’t going to like it after everything that happened,” Pete told him.

“Have you found Terry yet?” Brian changed the subject.

Pete arched a brow but went with it. “Not yet. I did reach out to an investigator and they are on it.”

Brian nodded. When they found him, he was in big legal trouble for everything he’d done.

His phone went off and he picked up the receiver.

“Anna is here for your next meeting,” Cheryl said.

“Send her in.” Brian hung up the phone again.

Shortly after, Anna walked in with a tablet, several papers, and a laptop in her arms. “Afternoon, gentlemen,” she greeted.

“I got your agenda, but I have to tell you I don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure what there is to be confused about. I brought examples of what these new requirements would do to the timeline based on a few different numbers of hours worked per day. I also emailed them, but sometimes it’s easier to see on paper.”

Anna handed both of them a stack of paper. He resented the way that she was nicely saying you are dumb with her statement.

Brian sighed and looked it over.

“You’ll see that even if we worked all but six hours a day and added another person to the project, we wouldn’t complete all the requirements on time. And that is assuming that the new person can be briefed and working today. I think it’s a really good concept and we should add it but as a second version.”

“That doesn’t solve the problem,” Brian challenged.

“It does solve the one you asked of me. You wanted this project, in its original requirements, to be completed by an already challenging deadline while cleaning up the mess that was created. This isn’t a no, it’s not right now.”

“These features will help build trust with our stakeholders,” Brian pushed.

“And I am happy to create a pitch and timeline for when that version would be ready to give to them. I can do that myself and answer all questions about why we can’t do it now.”

Brian started to speak but she held up her hand.

“If you want trust from your stakeholders the best thing you can do is deliver a working version of the program to specifications. Anything else is a bonus, but we simply don’t have time for it now.

“Brian, she’s right. I know you’re trying to make a situation that’s tough better, but we can’t take the risk,” Pete jumped in.

He knew. Deep down he knew that she was right and this was the best path forward, but he didn’t want to admit it. Didn’t want her to be right.

“I have a few other details that we can add to enhance the appeal and make it more functional for version two. Combined with what you are already asking and customer reviews of the original version, it should help make it more marketable.”

Brian sighed. She was good. Anna had come in here and told him no but then positively positioned it to give him more if he agreed to her telling him to wait.

“Let me see,” he relented.

Anna smiled and handed him another paper. She passed one to Pete and spent the next half an hour going over the details she wanted to add.

The more she talked, the smugger Pete looked. Anna had won this battle and they both knew it.

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