TCFBO #062: A Walk In The Park - Part One

Read Time: 4 minutes

In September this year, Paul and two of his friends are intending to walk 55 miles of the Pennine Way over the course of four days.

It’s been on their bucket list since they were 18 and they figured that 35 years was probably a long enough time to think about it and that they should actually crack on and do it.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Pennine Way, it’s a very long walking route that has plenty of steep hills and valleys to contend with along the way.

And bearing in mind that we live in possibly the flattest part of the UK, hill walking is not something we get do very often.

So, this week, the two of us headed up to the Peak District National Park for a couple of days to get in a bit of uphill and downhill training.

And, as we tackled the challenging terrain, it struck us how similar elements of the walk were to navigating the complexities of business.

So here are a couple of key considerations that our two days of walking brought to light, which are just as applicable to succeeding in business as they are to conquering steep hills.

Key Consideration 1:

Use the Triple Constraint throughout your projects to help identify what, if anything, needs adjusting…and be willing to adapt as necessary.

We’d initially planned to do a 14-mile hike on day one and a 12-mile hike on day two.

As it turned out, by the end of day one we were both physically exhausted and neither of us felt able to tackle the walk we’d planned for day two.

However, the important thing was that we did a challenging walk on the second day that included at least one ascent.

Now, if you’re a long-term subscriber you’ll know we’ve talked about the Triple Constraint previously.

But in essence, if you set a deadline to complete a project by, you may need to be flexible in other areas.

For example, if the time is fixed you may need more resources to deliver the result you want.

Or you may have to reduce the scope of what you set out to achieve in order to meet the deadline.

Well, on Day Two, the time was fixed as we had to complete the walk before it got dark.

We had to accept the reality that we had less resources (i.e. our physical energy) than we had anticipated when we had planned to hike 12 miles.

So we had to adjust the scope of the project to a 5.5 mile walk.

The Triple Constraint also kicked in when we got to the midway point of the 14 mile walk at 5pm on Day One.

We’d covered approximately 8 miles including two ascents and we now had a choice.

Cut the hike short and walk along the road back to the car for about an hour.

Or complete the last six miles before it started to get dark at 9.30pm.

So we used the Triple Constraint.

We assessed the…

- Time…how much time did we have before it got dark?

- Resources…did we still have the physical energy, food, water, battery remaining on the phones, first aid kit, etc to complete the final six miles.

- Scope…what mileage did we have to cover to reach the car, over what terrain and could we cover it in the allocated time?

After a couple of minutes discussion and a look at the map, we came to the conclusion that we could still achieve our initial target with the time and resources we had left.

So we set off on the final six miles.

Was our assessment correct?

Did we make it to the car before it got dark?

Yes we did.

But only just.

After what turned out to be a much harder final three and a half miles than we had anticipated, we arrived at the car with about ten minutes of daylight to spare.

Key Consideration 2:

Whenever you’re facing challenges, remember to regularly pause, look up and check you are still heading in the right direction.

Both walks threw up several challenges for us.

Extremely boggy mud.

Rocks to scramble over.

Fallen trees.

And as we encountered them it was important that our immediate focus was on overcoming them.

Where was the next foot hold in the rocks?

Was it easier to climb over the tree, go under it or pick a path around it?

Was that bit of mud solid enough for us to stand on?

Sometimes the challenges just kept coming one after another, which really slowed down our progress.

However, even in these situations, we still took time to look up as soon as the immediate challenge had been tackled.

Were we still on track?

Did we need to adjust our route to get back on the path or avoid the next obstacle?

Looking up from the problem gave us a new perspective and ensured we were still heading in the right direction.

If we’d kept our heads down, we’d have just tackled one obstacle after another, even if an obstacle wasn’t blocking the direction we wanted to head in.

Looking up helped us avoid challenges we didn’t need to take on.

Next week we’ll share more key points from our two days walk in the Peak District National Park.

In the meantime, we’d encourage you to quickly assess your existing projects through the lens of the Triple Constraint and see if anything needs adjusting.

And, if you’re faced with a challenge this week, remember to keep looking up from the problem to make sure you’re still heading towards your overall vision and not taking on unnecessary challenges.

Let us know how you get on and we’ll see you next week.

Paul & Philly

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