Anonymous
As the technical lead for automation I identified an opportunity to improve the build/test/release infrastructure as well as improving the time to market, reducing defects in the final product and reducing stress generated during release season.
Even though the benefits were clear the general consensus from leadership was that achieving those goals would require years of effort and distracting from the operational work.
I had to create a program, execution plan and a proof of concept to convince my manager and leadership that it was feasible to work on the new project with no major disruption to the operational work.
This was possible because the first few tasks to tackle saved resources that could be reallocated to other projects. An example of this was replacing the local build infrastructure with cloud based infrastructure and relocating the person in charge of the maintenance of the local infrastructure to work in other projects.