Managing Constraints in a Getaway.
I never though I would be such a fan of national parks. Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to visit some of the most breathtaking national parks in the US. The last one I visited was Yellowstone.
This park spreads across three states: Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. It would be natural to think that in order to visit it you would have to fly directly to one of these states to be close to one of the four park entrances. Well, not necessarily.
Not all airports near by Yellowstone operate all year long and not all of them have direct flights from every highly populated city in the US. If we consider the PMI triple constraint framework, — Cost, Scope and Schedule — choosing the airport will affect at least 2 of these dimensions.
For example, if you fly in high season, Yellowstone Airport will be open. Meaning you’ll save some time driving to the park but you’ll spend more on ticket fares.
A getaway and a project share similar characteristics. The goal, in both cases, is to get us from one point, or state, to a new one. But the path that connects both states will be different depending on the constraints the getaway will be surrounded by.
These were my constraints:
- Getaway duration: Less than a week with no more than 3 week days.
- See all main park attractions.
- Avoid crowds.
- Drive less than 8hrs to final destination close to the park.
Now let’s map them to the project dimensions.
Scope: The park has 2 main loops. Each averaging 100 miles long. To conformably visit each of the hot spots, I dedicated 1 day to each loop.
Schedule: As I had to spend to 2 full days in the park, I added one day to get to my accommodation close to the park and one day to get back home.
Cost: The drive from my house to Yellowstone is on average 13hrs long. So I flew to Salt Lake City, rented a car and drove to West Yellowstone, the closest town to the west entrance. As it was low season, the air fare and car rental cost were relatively cheap. The same went for accommodation.
If one of my constraints had changed, like visiting in high season, definitely the cost dimension would have been affected. Resulting, possibly, in different stay length — schedule.
This simple real life example shows how successfully achieving a project goal is tightly bound to its constraints. Change one of them and the path — cost, schedule, scope — will be different.
This variation in constraints is what triggers the main question that needs to be answered before starting the any project — getaway — …
Under these constraints, should I follow this project goal or set a new one?
