Construction Detours

It has been a cold and rainy spring in the Midwest this year, and the weather finally turned nicer in the past few weeks. When the weather becomes nicer, everyone rushes out from hibernation, and there are cars everywhere on the roads. To make matters worse, the construction season also started and there are lane closures and detours all over the place. Sometimes I wonder who (if anyone?) coordinates these construction projects, because they all seem to start at the same time and all along the same direction. The roads between two places are either closed or down to one lane each way at the same time. Stacking road construction projects to avoid total chaos does not seem to be one of the factors considered.

We all experienced the frustration of being stuck in traffic that turned a simple 20 minute-trip into an hour-long ordeal. Of course we are experienced road warriors, and we can fix this problem and take care of this situation. So when the traffic starts to squeeze down from three lanes to one, we start to “re-calculate” the route in our heads and then jump into action …. cutting through the gas station, making a U-turn in a sub-division, going down the un-paved side roads, turning south to go north …. so after all the turning and twisting, beeping the horn, cursing (silently of course) at crazy drivers (me? not me) we finally reach the destination, taking more time to get there than we would have if we just simply stay the course.

Wow, don’t you feel “not very smart” (well, stupid is a bit strong!) when this happen to you? But in a similar way, we do this all the time when we execute projects. When things start to slow down because of external events and we can not accomplish the goals as quickly as we would like, we imagine a “construction detour” sign in front of us and we jump the gun to look for alternatives and take short cuts in order to meet deadlines. After wasting a lot of time and resources, we get to the destination and find out the slow down is only “minor” and we would have gotten the results a lot quicker if we simply stay the course and press on. Surely there are times that we need to adjust and make alternative plans, but many times we take the detours when we really don’t have to.

So just like we should know the situation (e.g. where are all the constructions) and gather up-to-date information (e.g. current traffic conditions, any accidents on the road) as much as we can before we take a trip, we should do the same when we execute projects. When we are prepared, we can avoid making off-the-cuff detour decisions, or worse yet, getting stuck in traffic when we should have taken the detours.

Enjoy the summer! Happy driving around orange cones!