Recover a Launch When a Lead Struggles

Project Context

You are the TPM for a Google Workspace initiative to launch a new Gemini in Gmail feature that auto-generates meeting follow-up summaries for Google Workspace Enterprise customers. The launch is scheduled for the end of the quarter, and the feature has already been previewed to Sales and a small group of design partners. The core team is 11 people across engineering, UX, product, legal, and Site Reliability Engineering, with two dependent teams in Gmail backend and Gemini platform.

Two weeks into execution, you notice the engineering lead is struggling: milestones are slipping, cross-team decisions are not being made, and junior engineers are blocked waiting for technical direction. The PM wants to keep the public launch date because it is tied to a Google Cloud sales campaign, while Legal is concerned that the model may surface sensitive email content incorrectly. You need to stabilize delivery without creating team friction or missing critical launch gates.

Constraints

• Launch deadline: 8 weeks from today
• Remaining budget: $120,000 for vendor QA and limited contractor support
• Team capacity: 11 core team members; no additional full-time headcount approved
• Dependencies: Gmail backend API update due in Week 3; Gemini safety review due in Week 5; localization for 6 languages due in Week 6
• Launch requirement: feature must be enabled for 50 pilot domains before full rollout

Complications

1. The engineering lead has not formally asked for help, but three workstreams are already 5 business days behind.
2. A senior engineer on the Gmail backend team is rotating to another priority in 10 days.
3. Sales has already told two strategic customers to expect pilot access next month.

Deliverables

1. Create an 8-week execution plan to recover the program and protect the launch.
2. Explain how you would support the struggling team member while maintaining accountability.
3. Propose scope trade-offs for pilot versus GA launch.
4. Identify the top risks, owners, and escalation triggers.
5. Define launch success criteria, rollout checkpoints, and a rollback plan.