We Will Get You Through It!

There is a comedy sketch from Bob & Tom that starts with a hilariously impossible promise: overnight delivery by train, from New York to Los Angeles. At one point, someone asks if they can really get a 2,000-pound package across the country overnight by rail. The answer is delivered with absolute confidence: “Norfolk and Waypal, overnight. Absolutely. Positively.” The name is doing some careful work. It lets you hear the phrase that nobody has actually said out loud. No way, pal. When I end up leading a project with six weeks left and something that feels like four months of work to do, I start the internal kickoff by telling the team to go watch that sketch. No other explanation. Just go watch it, then come back. Then I tell them: “Absolutely, positively, we will get you through it. There's Norfolk and Waypal, we are gonna to do it.” That does not mean we are going to do the thing exactly as it was originally promised. It means we are going to get through it. Absolutely. Positively. There is a difference. Laugh at the impossible first I think newer developers especially need permission to laugh at impossible requirements. An 800-pound gorilla from New York to Los Angeles overnight by train is impossible in a way that is easy to laugh at. A project that needs a full cloud environment, API work, a mobile application in the app stores, production deployment, security approvals, and a dozen other things in six weeks? That can feel less funny when it is sitting in your sprint board. But it may be just as impossible if we take the requirements literally. The first danger on a crunch project is shame. A junior developer can look at an impossible deadline and wonder if they are missing something. Maybe everyone else understands how this gets done. Maybe it is a talent problem. Maybe if they just worked harder, they could turn six weeks into twelve. Nope. Sometimes the work is just Norfolk and Waypal . Humor does not solve the problem. It lowers the temperature enough that