Its 5:00. I have one hour. With the kids gone, the cub cadet (with plow) still in need of repair, I wonder can I meet my requirements and finish the job by 5:55 so I can dust off, open a beer and get in the shower by 6. The schedule looks tight, I could do more analysis, but starting the job will tell me a lot and help me get it done too.

I get my back friendly shovel and get to work, shoveling behind the car we plan on taking. After fifteen minutes I have a realization, I am not going to make it. The pan is not doable. A quick estimate and I see I have cleaned off about one eighth of the driveway and I have used one quarter of my time. Sound familiar. My back was not going to let me move more snow more quickly. Wishful thinking would mean not getting to the shower on time and possibly being blocked in the driveway. Thirty minutes from shower out the door is a metric established long ago. I needed to adjust the plan.

I got a committee together to discuss our options. Oh wait a second, that was a different plan.

I cleared about one eighth of the drive in fifteen minutes. Using my velocity it looks like a two hour job. So, its likely I will only have time to move half of the snow that’s preventing access to and from our house. I better focus on the “critical path”. The other car would be buried for another day and the front walk would have to wait.

A good snow drift could have destroyed my plan, but surprisingly there were none on the critical path. Shoveling this software is predictable, and my velocity was stable. I did not set any stretch goals, because I wanted to shovel another day. Keeping with my sustainable pace, I delivery the critical path by 5:55. The Heine tasted good, and we made the next milestone: dinner with our friends.