Creating The Elements
For decades, while imagining and implementing projects, I’ve always used and taught others my simple checklist of big project design:
Principles: What are those things we hold as fundamental values, those a priori beliefs that will inform the project? If we get these right and agree that these are shared by the team, the other parts will flow after this important first step;
Objectives: What do we want as the end-point or result of the project? Let’s all agree on what the objectives are so we’re all proceeding in the same direction;
Strategies: How are we going to get to our objectives? Using good decision theory, figure out the best path forward;
Resources: What are we going to need in order to strategically meet our objectives? Let’s identify and gather up the people, the funds, and the tools we will need;
Roles: Who does what and where are the lines of authority? Everyone on the team is equal; common but with differentiated responsibilities. Assign roles based on both comparative advantages and each person’s interests;
Tasks: Assign the tasks and get the hell out of the way!
With a little more than six weeks before the adventure begins, I’ve been busy working on several individual elements of my project design and linking them, one by one, to the main page of this site, preparing for its formal launch in early April 2021.
These are The Elements that I’ve be writing and re-writing recently:
The Underpinnings
underpinnings noun (ˈʌndəˌpɪnɪŋz)
1: the foundation used for the support of a structure
2: ideas or concepts that inform an endeavor or line of research, as in philosophical underpinnings
Invention has its own algorithm: genius, obsession, serendipity, and epiphany in some unknowable combination.
— Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker, 12 May 2008
Principles: This piece is both the origins story of how The Rise Up Ride sprang to life but also a cataloging of the fundamental beliefs that inform the adventure. It’s a bit of The Boss meets Dr. King while spinning mushed up with a deep longing to get back outdoors.
Objectives: Where is this going? Unclear at this point, but you can clearly see the planning on this page. With the Canada-US border still closed and no clear picture of whether vaccines will vanquish variants, the eventual route may not be clear. However Ride With GPS has wonderful tools for sharing my maps and possible alternatives.
Strategies: One of the most important elements of the trip has been the strategic physical preparation. This piece tells the story of spending the last year, indoors, taking hundreds of yoga, spin, HIIT, Tabata, stretch, barre, and meditation classes, while losing 10 kg, to prepare to roll out the door ready to ride. While there are many strategies remaining to be planned while traveling, this was the one strategic step that I could do at home. #HTFU
Next up: Resources. Specifically gear and artwork. In the next week, as some new pieces arrive in boxes and are added to the bike, and Spencer Hawkes, the brilliant creator of Nomad Patches, finishes his design work on the logo, I’ll be writing soon about the assembling of the remaining parts.
Kimo
The Bronx, 8 March 2021
