Kicking the Can
August, 2022
When To Kick A Can Down The Road
Recently, I was helping on a project which was in a crunch for time and budget. One of the engineers told me they didn’t want to kick the can down the road on a few items that I thought were insignificant for the phase we were in.
We had several back and forths but eventually (and with much reluctance) I was able to get them thinking right about which items we could defer and which were critical. I’ll explain my thought process so you don’t end up wasting your own time.
In any project, kicking the can gets a bad reputation. The phrase is used anytime something important is put off for another day. But, there are legitimate times when kicking the can is the right action. There could be any of the following:
- Schedule constraints
- Information constraints
- Resource constraints
- Financial constraints
All of these constraints are related to a project’s priorities. And, at different times in a project you have different priorities. In the beginning of a project you’re doing things like:
- Gathering existing conditions and design data
- Getting buy-in from stakeholders
- Proving a concept plan
- Coordinating with permitting or local agencies
In all of these cases you’re making a judgment call between scale, priorities and timing of data acquisition. So, that’s what kicking the can requires, good judgment.
Engineers love to live in a world of black and white but the world is subjective. The situation should be driving the strategy for delivery. I’ve watched engineers argue the most irrelevant points only to have their whole base of reason sweep away because they were looking at the problem all wrong.
Young engineers, in their first five to seven years of experience, should be developing their judgement on what matters and at what stage. That way you’ll now exactly why and where you’re kicking to, when it’s your turn.