Can the word "instrumental" be used in a negative way? [closed]

On a project Post-mortem Report that I was asked to write I need to state that a person was key in the disaster of the project. I was thinking of describing it as:

... and John Smith was instrumental in the outcome of the project.

I'm not sure if "instrumental" conveys the message correctly. I wanted to state that he was "greatly responsible" of the fiasco; he was one of five people who didn't do the work properly.

Solution 1:

Instrumental is absolutely the wrong word to use in this type of after-action report. An instrument is something or someone used by others to accomplish a purpose.

A report of this kind should begin by identifying the individuals and the roles that they played, e.g. project manager, lead developer, requirements analyst, subject matter expert, etc. If the roles were defined by an existing methodology or generally accepted practice inside the company, start with them. If there was no formal methodology, there are several well-established engineering methodologies to draw on.

The report itself should focus on role expectations and documented actions.

If it’s necessary to highlight a specific role where the expectations were not met, then it’s best to describe this in words like the following: “the greatest discrepancies between the estimated work and the planned work occurred in X”, or “the selection of bidders did not take full account of their ability to meet previously committed schedules”.

It’s also possible to provide analysis of the form: “in tracing back the chain of events, the most consequential decisions were made by the Project Manager”.

A report on a failure costing $55 million will likely be used as input into further decision-making. The writer should be very careful not to attribute motive in any way. In some companies, the loss of $55 million might be considered an acceptable price for what was learned, or for things that the writer does not know of.